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UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES 



CONFIRMED BY 



TRINITARIAN TESTIMONIES. 



UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES 



J6jLp 






TRINITARIAN TESTIMONIES; 



SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OF EMINENT THEOLOGIANS 
BELONGING TO ORTHODOX CHURCHES. 



SHitlj fnirobuciorg uxib ©aasional Remarks. 



BY JOHN WILSON, 

AUTHOR OF ''SCRIPTURE PROOFS AND SCRIPTURAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNITARIAN ISM." 



TENTH EDITION. 

BOSTON: 
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 

M DCCC LXXI, 



Mr 



EQtered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by Henry A. Miles, Secre- 
tary op the American Unitarian Association, in the ClerJs's Office of the District 
Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



University Press : John Wilson & Son, 
Cambridge. 






PREFACE. 



About thirteen years ago, the author published in England 
a work entitled " The Concessions of Trinitarians," the object 
of which was to prove, from the comments and criticisms of 
distinguished divines belonging to Orthodox churches, the 
truth of Unitarianism in regard to the teachings of Scripture 
on the subject of the personality and relations of God, Christ, 
and the Holy Spirit. Judging, shortly after his arrival in 
this country in 1846, that, from the kind reception which it 
had met with, and the small number of copies on hand, the 
book would soon be out of print, he thought it desirable to 
republish it on an enlarged scale; and, accordingly, since 
that time, he has devoted a considerable portion of his leisure 
hours to the examination of theological works, with the view 
of making such extracts as seemed best suited to effect his 
design. 

The " Concessions " consisted of a selection of remarks on 
texts taken up according to the order in which they occur in 
the authorized version of the Bible, with an Introduction 
of seventy-six pages of miscellaneous matter. That Intro- 
duction forms the basis of the present volume, but has been 
subjected to so many changes in arrangement, and expanded 
so much in its character and plan, that it has been deemed 
advisable to designate this publication by a new title. 

a* 



VI I'REFACE. 

It is intended to print, at some future time, the remain- 
der of the work, comprising two or three additional volumes. 
Each of these, though related to the others, and upholding 
with them one great presumptive argument for the soundness 
of the principles of interpretation adopted by Unitarians, will 
embrace the consideration of a certain number of the Sacred 
Books, and be issued by itself. 

On the mode in which the writer has executed his task, 
bo far as it may be judged of by this volume, it is not for him 
to pronounce an opinion ; but he may be allowed to say, that, 
while he has sometimes omitted, in his quotations, sentencea 
which seemed to him irrelevant, and, for want of room, has 
abridged others which he thought appropriate, he has been 
careful to do no injustice to his authors, and, to avoid even 
the appearance of unfairness, has not unfrequently length- 
ened his extracts beyond the measure required by the object 
he had in view. In noticing, therefore, errors or imperfec- 
tions, it is hoped that readers will attribute them to any 
motive but that of a wish, on the part of the transcriber, to 
pervert the sentiments of others for the purpose of making 
them coincide with his own; feeling assured, as he does, that 
no object, however excellent in itself, or however well adapted 
to advance the well-being of man, should be promoted by any 
means but those of candor, simplicity, justice, and directness 
of aim. 

If it be thought that the author has failed in the treatment 
of his subject, let the responsibility rest on himself, and not 
on the cause which he advocates, or on that section of the 
Christian church of which he is but an individual member. 
He has tried, through the assistance afforded him by his 
brethren of a different faith, to express and disseminate 
his own conceptions of biblical and Christian truth ; but, 
though writing as a Unitarian, and agreeing essentially with 



FREFACE. Vll 

the opinions entertained in general by the Unitarian body, 
he does not presume to act as its representative. It is the 
glory of this denomination that it recognizes no standard but 
reason and Scripture ; no leader but Christ ; no human au- 
thority as its representative, even though he were a Milton 
or a Locke, a Priestley or a Price, a Channing or a Norton. 
With one heart and one voice, its collective members pro- 
claim to the world their conviction of the great truth, that 
there is but one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, 
— two distinct and unequal persons or beings : the first of 
whom stands in the relation of Parent of all intelligences ; 
the second, in that of Son and Servant of God, by whom he 
was sent into the world to be the Teacher, the Guide, and the 
Saviour of mankind. 

As to the precise rank in the scale of creation to which 
Christ belonged, Unitarians differ in opinion, as they do in 
their modes of speaking of him ; and on this point the author 
may be found to disagree with many of his brethren in this 
country. It is frankly acknowledged that there are several 
passages in the New Testament which seem to imply that 
Jesus existed before his birth as an intelligence inferior only 
to God ; but, without wishing to be dogmatical on a subject 
which is not altogether free from indistinctness and difficulty, 
the writer would express his strong conviction, that, whatever 
Jesus was in a pre-existent state, the Scriptures represent him 
to have entered into this world, to have lived and labored, 
suffered and died, as a proper human being, — to have gone 
about his work of holy love and heavenly instruction, with 
all the instincts, affections, and properties of humanity ; but 
distinguished above the greatest, the wisest, and the best of 
men, by his more copious reception of the divine spirit ; by 
his higher acquaintance with the counsels and purposes cf 
Heaven ; by his more intimate communion and oneness with 

at 



viii PREFACE. 

God ; by his profounder obedience and submission to the will 
of the Father ; and by his brighter, his more express, manifes- 
tation of the love and tenderness of the Deity towards sinful 
and suffering men. 

While preparing materials for his work, the author received 
proposals from the American Unitarian Association, offering 
to adopt it as one of their publications. It will, of course, bo 
understood that this is an approval only of the general spirit 
and aim of the book, not as an indorsement of all its opinions. 
Grateful for the encouragement thus extended to his labors, 
he hopes that he may have contributed something, by these 
pages, to the cause of liberal Christianity, which the publica- 
tions of that Association are so well calculated to promote. 



22, School Street, Boston, 
Oct. 15, 1855. 






CONTENTS. 



Page. 
INTRODUCTION 1 

Chapter L 

THE SPIRIT OP SECTARIANISM INCONSISTENT WITH THE 
SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
Section. 

I. — The Religion of Jesus that of Love 25 

II. — True Zeal accompanied by a Spirit of Wisdom, Love, and 
Humility ; False Zeal, by an Ignorant, Uncharitable, Domi- 
neering, and Persecuting Spirit 84 

III. — Not Uniformity of Opinion, but Piety, Mutual Forbearance 

and Affection, — Love to God, Christ, and Man, — the Ba- 
ses of Christian Union 40 

IV. — The Duty of holding Intercourse and Communion with Chris- 

tians of all Denominations, and of Loving all Mankind . . 48 
V. — The Nature and Evils of an Intolerant or a Persecuting Spi- 
rit 66 

VI. — Faith, Orthodoxy, Heresy, Schism, and other Terms, often used 

as Watchwords of Party Warfare 67 

§ 1. Faith and Orthodoxy 67 

§ 2. Heresy and Schism 71 

VII. — The Constituents of the Christian Church ; Wise and Good 

Men in all Denominations 76 

V III. — Unitarians distinguished for their Worth, Piety, Intelligence, 

and Learning 86 

§ 1. Individual Unitarians 86 

§ 2. Unitarians in General .... 100 

IX. — Unitarians entitled to the Christian Name 108 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter IL 

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF THEOLOGICAL TRUTH, AND THE 

UNRESTRICTED MEANS OF ACQUIRING IT. 

Bection. Pag© 

I. — The Importance of Just Conceptions of Religion 125 

II. — The Right and Duty of Free Inquiry 131 

III. — Dispositions and Means requisite in the Search after Truth . 138 

IV. — Hindrances to Free Inquiry, and to the Spread of Truth . . 143 

§ 1. Early Prejudices . - 143 

§ 2. Prostration of the Judgment to Authority ........ 145 

$ 3. Blind Attachment to Received Opinions . 148 

§ 4. Predilections for the Mysterious 151 

§ 5. Impatience of Doubt, and Aversion to Trouble 153 

§ C. Party Spirit and Personal Interest 155 

* 7. The Speculations of Vanity and the Love of Singularity . . 156 

§ 8. The Dread of Contempt and Ridicule 158 

§ 9. The Influence of a Proud, Empty, Sectarian Criticism . . . 160 

§ 10. The Seductions of Feeling and Imagination • 161 

§ 11. Hindrances in General 164 

Chapter III. 

REASON AND REVELATION THE ONLY LEGITIMATE STANDARDS 
OF RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE. 

I. — The Obligation to use the Intellect in Matters of Religion . . 165 

II. — Reason and Revelation consistent with each other 172 

III. — Holy Writ sufficient, without the Dicta of Churches or of Indi- 

viduals, to be a Rule of Faith and Communion 177 

§ 1. Sufficiency of the Sacred Scriptures 177 

\ 2. Inefficacy and Pernicious Results of requiring an Assent or a 

Subscription to Creeds and Articles of Faith 180 

IV. — Need of Revising the Authorized Version of the Bible, and 

Correcting it from a Pure Text 185 

V. — The Sacred Books not Inspired Records, but Records of Reve- 
lation 188 

S 1. The Dogma of the Verbal or the Plenary Inspiration of the 

Bible not supported by Evidence •»«*»•»••» 188 

9 



CONTENTS. XI 

Section. Pago 
V. {continued.) 
\ 2. The Denial of Verbal or of Plenary Inspiration not a Denial 

of Revelation 199 

§ 3. The Dogma of the Infallibility of all Parts of the Bible inju- 
rious to the Interests of Christianity 206 

VI. — The Improper Treatment of Scripture 213 

VII. --Principles of Criticism and Interpretation, applicable chiefly 

to the New Testament 217 

§ 1. Criticism 217 

$ 2. Interpretation 221 

General Remarks 226 

Chapter IV. 

CHRISTIANITY INTELLIGIBLE, RATIONAL, AND PRACTICAL. 

I. — The Teachings of the Saviour distinguished for their Clearness 

and Simplicity 227 

II. — The Principles of Christianity suitable to all Capacities . . . 234 

III. — Christianity not a Religion of Speculative or Theoretical Pro- 

positions, but of Vital Facts and Practical Principles . . . 239 

IV. — The Creeds and Mysteries of the New Testament Simple and 

Comprehensible 243 

§ 1. Creeds of the New Testament 243 

(j 2. Mysteries of the New Testament 247 

V. — Belief in Unintelligible Mysteries and Metaphysical Creeds not 

essential to Salvation 250 

CHAPTER V. 
TRINITAR1ANISM EITHER UNINTELLIGIBLE OR SELF-CONTRADICTORY. 

1. — Various and Opposite Statements or Definitions of the Doc- 
trine of the Trinity 257 

\ 1. The Apostolic or Unitarian Trinity 260 

Remarks 250 

$ 2. The original Nicene Trinity 263 

Remarks and Animadversions . 263 

{ 3. The Coustantinopolitan Trinity .......... 231 



Xfl CONTENTS. 

Section *»*»■ 

I. (continued.) 

§ 4. The Trinity of Unequal Persons or Gods 265 

Remarks and Animadversions 266 

$ 5. The Athanasian Trinity, or the Trinity of Co-equal Persons . 268 

Remarks and Animadversions 270 

§ 6. The Westminster Trinity 273 

Remarks and Animadversions 273 

Remarks on the Ancient and Modern Theories of Eternal Gene- 
ration and Procession 271 

The Tendency of a Denial of Christ's Eternal Sonship . . . 276 

i 7. The Trinity of Self-existent and Independent Persons . • . 277 

Remarks and Animadversions 279 

4 8. The Trinity of Distinct, Eternal, and Infinite Minds or Beings . 280 

Remarks and Animadversions 284 

§ 9. The Trinity of Distinct Persons, Subsistences, or Agents . . 289 

Remarks and Animadversions 292 

§ 10. The Trinity of the Ipseity, the Alterity, and the Community . 295 

Remarks and Animadversions 296 

$ 11. The Trinity of Distinctions, or Mysterious Persons .... 297 

Remarks and Animadversions 300 

$ 12. The Trinity of Names, Modes, Relations, or Characters; of 

Impersonations, Developments, or Manifestations .... 301 

Remarks and Animadversions . . . . '. 308 

§ 13. Summary of Trinities 311 

Synonymes, Definitions, and Descriptions of the Phrase, " Three 

Persons" in One Godhead 312 

Titles, Attributes, and Functions of the Three Persons in the 

Godhead 314 

$ 14. The Apostolic or Unitarian Trinity (resumed) 315 

II. — The Doctrine of a Triune God Incomprehensible and Irrational 317 
< 1. This Dogma, no less than Transubstantiation, opposed to Com- 
mon Sense . 317 

$ 2. The Dogma of a Triune God utterly Incomprehensible, and 

repugnant to Reason 318 

HI. — Theological Terms either Unintelligible and Useless, if not Per 
nicious; or Expressive of Ideas, and should therefore bo 

clearly Defined t . . » 334 



contents. xiii 



Chapter VI. 

TEE TRINITY IN UNITY, AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST, NOT 
DOCTRINES OF REVELATION. 
Section. Pago. 

I. — The Terms " Trinity," " Triune God," " Person," " Hypos- 
tasis," " Homoousion," &c., Unscriptural and Improper . 331 
II. — The Doctrine of a Triune God, or of the Deity of Christ, not 

revealed in the Old Testament, or known to the Jews . . 334 

§ 1. Not revealed in the Old Testament 334 

$ 2. A Triune God and the Deity of Christ unknown to the Ancient 

Jews 339 

Explanation of the Phrase, " Word of the Lord," occurring in 
the Old Testament and in other Jewish Writings .... 345 

III. — The Doctrine of a Triune God, or of the Deity of Christ, not 

revealed to the Disciples before the day of Pentecost • • 351 

IV. — The Doctrine of a Triune God, or of the Deity of Christ, not 

divulged in the Acts of the Apostles 356 

V. — No Doctrines additional to those previously taught by Christ, 
or communicated on the day of Pentecost by the Holy 

Spirit, inculcated in the Epistles 362 

VI. — A Triune God, and the Deity of Christ, not Doctrines of Ex- 
press Revelation 366 

VII. — The Doctrine of a Triune God, and of the Deity of Christ, 

cannot be proved from Holy Scripture 374 

Chapter VII. 

GOD IS ONE. — THE FATHER ONLY, THE TRUE GOD. 

I. — The Existence of a Triune God not discernible by the Light 

of Nature 877 

II. — The Unity of God a Fundamental Principle of both Natural 

and Revealed Religion 381 

S 1. Importance of the Doctrine of the Divine Unity 381 

\ 2. The Unity of God proved by Reason, and manifested in the 

Works of Creation 384 

$ 3. The Unity of God revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and 

the New Testament 388 



Xiv CONTENTS. 

Section. Page 

III. — God, the Father, the only Person or Being who is Underived or 

Self-existent and Supreme 392 

IV. — The One Supreme Person or Being, the Father, the Only Object 

of Primary and Unceasing Adoration 397 

§ 1. The Worship of a Trinity Unscriptural and Improper — God 

to be addressed as One 397 

§ 2. The Father entitled to Supreme Worship 3'J9 

§ 3. The Son rarely, the Holy Ghost (as a Person different from the 

Father) never, in the Bible, addressed in Prayer .... 4C0 
§ 4. The Father, almost to the entire Exclusion of the Son and Holy 

Ghost, worshipped by the Trinitarian Congregationalists, or 

Independents, of England 402 

Chapter VIII. 

JESUS CHRIST INFERIOR TO GOD, THE FATHER. 

I. — In his Nature and his Attributes, Christ Inferior to God . . 407 

§ 1. As a Divine Being, Christ Inferior to the Father 408 

9 2. As a Pre-existent Being, or even as the Creator of the World, 

Christ not necessarily God 412 

II. — Deficiency of Proof for Christ's Existence before his Appear- 
ance on Earth 414 

$ 1 Christ not the Lord God, or the Angel of Jehovah, who ap- 
peared to the Patriarchs and the Prophets 414 

§2. Christ's being "sent" or "proceeding from God," and his 

" coming down from Heaven," Phrases signifying that ho 

had received the fullest Instruction and Authority from God 417 

111. — Christ's Sonship not implying an essentially Divine Nature, 

but his being the Messiah, his Moral Resemblance to God, 

and God's Love towards him 419 

I V — Christ not called " God," in the highest Sense of the Term . 425 

V. — Christ trained by Divine Providence to act as the Messiah . 434 

VI. —In his Offices and Qualifications, Christ Subordinate to God - 438 

^ 1. Christ as a Divine Teacher, and a Worker of Miracles ... 438 

§ 2. Christ as Lord while on Earth 442 

§ 3. Christ as Saviour or Redeemer ... 443 

t 4. Christ as Mediator 444 



CONTENTS. XV 

Section. Pacje. 

VII. — The Moral Character of Christ, that of a Finite and Dependent 

Being 446 

$ 1. As exhibited in his Habitual Piety 446 

§ 2. As exhibited amid Temptations 450 

§ 3. As exhibited in his Last Sufferings 454 

VIII. — Christ not God, but the Representative, the Manifestation, the 

Moral Image, of God 458 

IX. — As Head of the Church, and as Judge of Mankind, Christ 

derived his Power and Glory from God 464 

X. — Christ not to be worshipped with Supreme Veneration, but 
with the Honor due to one who faithfully performed the 
Will of God, and died for the Salvation of Men .... 469 
§ 1. Civil, not Divine, Homage paid to Jesus while on Earth . . 469 
4 2. Secondary, not Supreme, Homage paid, or required to be paid, 

to Christ, after his Exaltation to Heaven 471 

Chapter IX. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT NOT A THIRD PERSON IN THE GODHEAD, 
BUT GOD HIMSELF, OR HIS INFLUENCES, GIFTS, &c. 

I. — Deficiency of Evidence for the Deity of the Holy Spirit, as a 

Third Person in the Godhead 477 

II. — The Holy Spirit, either God, the Father, or the Divine Power, 

Influences, or Gifts 481 

§ 1. God, without Distinction of Persons 481 

$ 2. The Power, Influence, or Gifts of God 482 

III. — The Holy Spirit, if a Person different from the Father, Inferior 

to Him and Christ 485 



INDEXES. 

1. — Texts quoted or referred to 487 

II. — Early Christian Writers referred to 493 

III. — Trinitarians quoted or referred to 494 

IV. — Unitarians referred to 603 




INTRODUCTION. 



It is well known, that for many ages the Christian church has been 
divided into two great classes, distinguished from each other by the 
names of Unitarian and Trinitarian. 

I. According to the former class, the Almighty and Infinite Being, 
to whom universal nature, both material and spiritual, owes its exist- 
ence and preservation, is strictly One, — one in a sense similar to that 
in which the word is employed when men speak of an individual 
belonging to any order or species of intelligent natures, — one Mind, 
one Spirit, one Person, one Agent This Being, and he alone, is 
self-existent, underived, independent; the only absolute Possessor 
of every perfection ; the single and original Source of ail existence, 
of all might, of all wisdom, of all goodness ; the God and Father of 
all intelligences, whether celestial or terrestrial, human or divine; 
the God and Father even of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though 
immeasurably superior, in moral and spiritual grandeur, to all other 
beings of whom we have any knowledge, was and is dependent on the 
One Supreme and Universal Parent for his existence, his powers, and 
Ins offices, — for his authority and qualifications as the Messiah ; as 
the Representative or Vicegerent of God ; as the Teacher, the Saviour, 
the King, and the Judge of mem 

Some Unitarians are of opinion, that Christ was, in his entire nature, 
a man, raised up by the Almighty, and endowed with an inspiration 
far surpassing that of any other Heaven-taught Prophet; others, 

1 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

that, before lis appearance on the earth, he had existed in heaven as a 
created, superhuman, if not superangelic, being. Some have thought 
that the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God, particularly 
as shown by Jesus and the apostles, had also a personal though derived 
existence ; while others, the majority, have considered the divine spirit, 
flowing throughout the Sacred Records, to be either God himself, or 
J lis gifts, agency, and influence, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, 
- — whether natural or supernatural. They all, however, behove in the 
strict or simple Unity and the unrivalled perfections of Him who is 
God and Father, and in the derivation of Christ's nature, power, and 
glory, and of the existence and attributes of all other persons or beings, 
from the one Creator, the one Parent, the one God. 

Whatever differences of opinion, then, may exist among Unitarians 
concerning the particular rank in the scale of creation to which our 
Lord or any other intelligence belongs, there is no difference whatever 
respecting the great doctrine which contradistinguishes them from 
their Trinitarian brethren. On this subject there is among them no 
contrariety of sentiment j and the doctrine, whether true or false, is so 
simple as to be incapable of being misunderstood. 

H. According to the second of the above-mentioned classes, — the 
Trinitarian, — the Deity is One, and yet Three; one God, but three 
hypostases, or Persons, — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; 
each of whom is the uncreated, incomprehensible, eternal, and almighty 
God, though they do not by any means constitute three uncreated, 
incomprehensible, eternal, and almighty Gods ; each being different in 
some respect from the others, though they are one in essence, and 
equal in attributes. The second of these persons — God the Son, 
the Son of God, the Logos, or the Word — assumed human nature 
in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and, after a lapse of thirty years 
from his birth, entered upon his office as the long-expected Messiah ; 
uniting in his person two natures, one of which was truly human, and 
the other truly divine. In other words, the second person of the 
Trinity became God-man. 



DIVERSITIES OF TRINITARIANISM 3 

This, so far as we can judge from the authorized statements of 
Trinitarianism that we have seen, is the professed belief of all, or 
nearly all, Trinitarians ; and yet, strangely enough, either the language 
used is so difficult of comprehension, or the ideas involved in the terms 
are so contradictory, that the supporters of this doctrine, whenever 
they venture to describe or explain what they mean, and sometimes 
even in then* briefest definitions, affirm or concede some particular 
point which is fatal to the principle itself on which their belief is 
founded. Thus, many Trinitarians — adopting the Athanasian Creed 
so called — declare the uncreated and eternal Son to have been 
begotten of the Father, and the uncreated and eternal Holy Ghost 
to have proceeded from the Father and the Son; but it is freely 
acknowledged by not a few theologians of high eminence, some of 
whom have been distinguished for their opposition to Units rianism, 
that the doctrines of eternal generation and procession clash with the 
idea of self-existence and independence, — an idea involved in the very 
conception of a first Supreme Cause. According to the same train 
of thought, a host of learned Trinitarians have not scrupled to affirm, 
that a pre-eminence and a subordination obtain among the three persons 
in the Godhead; — that the Father is the Source, the Fountain, the 
Head, the Principle of being ; and that the Son and the Holy Ghost 
derived their existence and their attributes from the Father; — 
language than which none can more clearly imply superiority, infe- 
riority, and inequality ; or, in other words, that the Father, and he 
only, is the true God. On the other hand, some have boldly affirmed, 
that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are as distinct from each other 
as Peter, James, and John, — that they are three distinct, infinite 
Beings or Minds; thus virtually giving up the notion of a Triune 
Deity, and adopting, though with a vague unconsciousness and without 
profession, that of three Gods : while others, again, have defined the 
word " person " to signify, not a distinct, intelligent agent, but a mere 
relation in the Godhead, as if only one divine agent acted in the seve- 
ral characters of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 



4 INTRODUCTION 

Thus, as it appears to us, and as in the following pages will be de» 
monstrated, is Trinitarianism inconsistent with itself. Thus, in its very 
attempts to free itself from difficulties, is it obliged to acknowledge 
principles which war against, and tend to destroy, its own elements. 

We are not unaware, that the various parties into which Trinitarians 
are divided — clearly perceiving and pointing out, as they do, the 
errors and absurdities of their brethren, but with only a dim recogni- 
tion of their own — have each felt unwilling to regard the others as 
orthodox,* and have been often disposed to shut them out from theii 
own fold, or to throw them into the ranks of their professed opponents, 
the Antitrinitarians. But, however they may differ in their explica- 
tions of the doctrine from which they are denominated, and — in 
their several attempts to explain the unexplainable, and reconcile the 
irreconcilable and absurd — give out, in spite of themselves, glimmer- 
ings of Scriptural truth, or yield up positions serviceable to the cause 
of Unitarianism, — we venture to affirm, that, whether favorable to the 
views of Athanasius or of Sabellius, of Sherlock or of South, of Bishop 
Bull or of Archbishop Whately, they are all, with but few exceptions, 
properly classed under the general designation of Trinitarian, and not 
Unitarian. They have all acknowledged themselves to be Trinitarian, 
and many of them have gloried in the name, — have all belonged to 
Trinitarian chinches, — have all subscribed to, or acknowledged a 
belief in, the dogma of a Triune God, — have all professed Jesus 
Christ to be, personally, Almighty God, or equal to him, — and have 
all refrained from being united to churches or to individuals who 
openly and unequivocally regard God as one, and only one; and 
who believe the Lord Jesus, whether as human or superhuman, to be 

* The term " Orthodox," whether as a noun or an adjective, will be used, in oui 
own remarks, not to imply literal soundness of doctrine, or, as commonly employed 
in the Now-England States, to distinguish Trinitarian from Unitarian Congregation- 
alists, but merely to indicate a belief in the doctrine of a Triune God, of whatever 
character that doctrine may be, as opposed to the opinions of Unitarians, who are 
regarded by their opponents as heterodox, or unsound in the faith. In other words, 
the term, when used by us, is to be regarded as a mere quotation, whether marked 
as such or not. 



THE APPARATUS OP TMNITARIANISM. 5 

a created being, inferior to the God who gave him his existence and 
his powers. 

To state, however, Trinitarianism in its most general form, and with 
an accuracy sufficient for our present purpose, it is the doctrine which 
teaches that in the one God there are three co-essential, co-equal, and 
co-eternal persons, the second of whom became, in the fuhiess of time, 
the Messiah. To uphold this doctrine, the stores of erudition, the 
sub til ties of philosophy, the eloquence of the pulpit, and the pro- 
ductions of the press, — not to mention the decrees of synods and of 
councils, the articles of one church, and the confessions and catechisms 
of others, — have all been called into requisition. On behalf of this 
doctrine, in particular, have treatises and comments unnumbered been 
written and published. For this purpose the Bible has been opened, 
ransacked, and re-ransacked ; and its texts — in fractions, in units, and 
in thousands — have been brought into logical and metaphysic play. 
The first words in Genesis have been deemed to intimate a plurality 
of persons in the Godhead ; the last in the book of the Apocalypse, 
the Deity of Jesus Christ. Indeed, we might say, almost without a 
rhetorical figure, that nearly every sentence in the Sacred Records has 
been adduced, either by itself or in combination with others, to prove, 
confirm, or defend the dogma of a Triune God.* 

Had the doctrine adverted to not been impugned, all this vast 
apparatus of learning, of philosophizing, of decreeing, of catechizing, 
of writing, of preaching, and of printing, would not, of course, have 
been brought into operation. Accordingly, it has been found, that, in 
all ages of the Christian church, even when the hand of power wielded 
its weapons of silence, extermination, and death against "heretics," 
there were witnesses for the contrary doctrine, — that God is one, 
not three; and that our Lord Jesus Christ, "anointed with the oil 



* John Wesley, in his Sermons on Several Occasions, vol. i. p. 238, says that the 
" Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, [is] discovered to us in the very first line 
of his [God's] written word, ... as well as in every part of hi? subsequent revelations, 
given by the mouth of all his holy prophets and apostles." 

1* 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

of gladness above his fellows," was inferior, in nature and in attributes, 
to the Infinite Being whom he called his Father and his God. Many 
of these witnesses have also, in the most jDublic manner, declared their 
reasons for then belief; have appealed to Scripture passages which they 
regarded as proving the simple Oneness of God, and his unqualified 
Supremacy over all other beings ; and have endeavored to interpret 
such texts as were adduced in favor of a Trinity in Unity, and of the 
Deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost, in harmony with what they 
thought to be the dictates of reason and the teachings of revelation. 

The usual mode of answering the arguments and interpretations of 
Unitarians has probably been that to which we have just adverted, — 
the adducing of an immense quantity and variety of proof, of which a 
large portion had no possible relation to the subject. But, unhappily, 
this lack of discrimination in judging of evidence, this wholesale 
treatment of Sacred Scripture, — so common, indeed, amongst all 
sects and on all theological subjects, — was not a matter the most 
objectionable. Unacquainted with the principles of a generous tole- 
ration, or forgetful of the mild and beneficent spirit of their great 
Master, the dominant party, when they did not happen to use the 
sword of the civil magistrate, were frequently tempted to employ other 
weapons equally effective in the subjugation of free thought, and the 
annihilation of opinions regarded as heretical. Many of the older 
books of polemical Trinitarians are filled with accusations against their 
opponents, of denying the Lord that bought them, — of wilfully 
wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction, — of being dis- 
believers in the Bible ; schismatics, blasphemers, infidels j who, unless 
converted to the true faith, — or, as we should interpret it, unless they 
believed in opposition to the evidence presented to their own minds, 
or professed opinions contrary to their own convictions, — would be 
consigned by the God of love to everlasting woe. 

In speaking thus, we should regret to be thought justly chargeable 
with the very fault which we condemn. We do not mention it foi 
the purpose of throwing any odium either on Trinitarianism or on its 



THE CRY OF IIERESY, AND THE LESSON OF LOVE. 7 

advocates. The truth is, that in past times the principles of a genuine 
religious liberty were but faintly understood, — scarcely recognized 
except by a few of those who suffered for their adherence to an 
unpopular cause. Had Unitarians been the prevailing sect, it is not 
improbable, that — though, from the more benign character of their 
belief and their professions of greater liberality, less worthy of excuse 
— they might have been equally, or nearly as, regardless of the claims 
of brotherly love and universal toleration. We would not, therefore, 
rake up the evils of the past, in order to blame the present; we 
would not collect the errors of the fathers, to accumulate them on 
the heads of then children ; but show, on the contrary, that though 
still, now and then, may be heard the cry of heresy and the doom 
of damnation, a more kind, charitable, considerate, and Christian 
spirit is working its way hito the hearts of all sects ; and that, despite 
of a theology which would exclude from heaven all who spurn at 
priestly power and creed-control, many Trinitarians are actuated by a 
generous impulse — the impulse of Christian principle — to overthrow 
the barriers which separate them from Unitarians, and, whilst sincerely 
attached to the characteristics of their faith, glad to acknowledge, that 
out of the pale of their own temple, as well as within its precincts, 
there are great and good men ; sincere disciples of the Lord Jesus ; 
and hens, with themselves, of the same immortal glory. 

Accordingly, in the following pages, a portion of the beautiful and 
noble lessons which have issued from the more catholic minds of the 
class to which we have referred wall be presented for two reasons : 
First, To aid and encourage the reader to cherish a spirit, which, while 
it prayerfully and dispassionately seeks for light, increasing light, and 
brooks no human control over its own thoughts and utterances, would 
grant to others the same privileges which it claims for itself; humble 
in the possession of its faith, zealous in the promotion of what it 
deems to be truth, and universal in its love. Secondly, To show, that, 
if, according to the admissions of then opponents, Unitarians are many 
of them pure, devout Christians, as well as virtuous and honorable 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

men, it is possible that the particular views of religion which they 
profess may not, after all, be so bad as they have been represented 5 
that Unitarianism, though often vilified as the refuge of fools and 
sciolists, and the half-way house to infidelity, if not to atheism, may 
contain some of the elements of truth ; nay, may perhaps be the very 
truth, though now imperfectly conceived and uttered, which was once 
proclaimed by Heaven through the lips and writings of prophets and 
apostles, and manifested in the teachings, the works, the prayers, the 
sufferings, the life and death, of the Son of God. 

We have said, that, along with a great deal of uncharitable language, 
it was usual to reply to the arguments and interpretations of Unitarians, 
by adducing from the Bible, in favor of a Trinity in Unity, a vast 
number of passages, which had nothing whatever to do with the 
question at issue. In the heat of controversy, where victory is aimed 
at as much as the possession of truth, and where sectarian passions 
are as likely as the qualities of discretion and sober judgment to be 
enlisted in the cause of dogmas, this over-doing in the collection of 
proof-texts is to be more or less expected, not only from Trinitarians 
as such, but from all who, with more zeal than knowledge, are engaged 
in the defence or the demolition of particular points in theology. 
Amongst all denominations will be found men who have more intensity 
and warmth of feeling than candor or wisdom, — more zeal to propa- 
gate their opinions by every means at hand, than a disposition to 
acknowledge difficulties, or a spirit to welcome truth from whatever 
quarter it may proceed. But it will not follow, that, because some 
portions of the evidence adduced for a certain doctrine are sophistical 
or irrelevant, all the other portions are equally false or invalid, and 
the doctrine itself without any foundation. The fallacy of one 
argument does not imply the fallacy of all other arguments. When, 
therefore, an injudicious commentator or controversialist adduces 
Ps. xxxvi. 9 (" With thee is the fountain of life : in thy light shall 
we see light ") in favor of a personal Trinity, or Ps. xlv. 1 (" My 
heart is inditing a good matter ") in favor of a plurality of hypostases 



THE FEEBLENESS OF TRINITARIAN SUPPORTS. if 

in the Godhead, or of the eternal generation of Christ, it would by 
no means be justifiable for one to infer, that all other appeals to 
Scripture, in support of these doctrines, are as futile and absurd. 
The only fair and legitimate effect of the production of arguments so 
obviously groundless should be, not disbelief in the doctrines them- 
selves, but an apprehension of the possibility that there may be a lack 
of more substantial evidence, when so much stress is laid on what is 
obviously trifling ; and a determination, on the part of the inquirer, 
to examine and sift that testimony which appears to bear greater 
marks of plausibility or of truth. 

This much we are willing to concede ; for it is an unquestionable 
fact, that every good and great cause — every truth in science, in 
morals, or in religion — is liable to be injured by the production 
of unnecessary and futile evidence. It is therefore not impossible, 
that, while for its support much of what is insignificant and useless 
has been adduced, the doctrine itself of a Triune God may yet be 
true. It is not impossible that the removal of the false supports 
which have been placed in the temple of Trinitarianism, — their de- 
struction by the hands of the candid and distinguished of those 
who worship at its altar, — may have the tendency rather to exhibit 
the strength and durability of the fabric than the weakness of its 
foundation. 

We freely admit all this, in order to show that we would not extend 
the argument against Trinitarianism, employed in this work, beyond 
its legitimate bounds. But, at the same time, we have no hesitation 
in affirming, that this argument — drawn from the involuntary con- 
cessions of our opponents — assumes an air of far greater probability, 
and rises into evidence which may justly be considered as presumptive, 
when it is derived from the startling and unquestionable fact, that the 
texts on which Trinitarianism must rest if there be any truth at all 
in the doctrine, have been disposed of in a precisely similar way as 
those to which we have referred. Let us suppose, for example, what 
will scarcely be denied, that there is no passage in the whole compass 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

of the Bible so likely to countenance the doctrine of Christ's iden* 
tity of nature with the essence of the Father as John x. 30, " I and 
the Father are one." Now, if it be found that the believers in thi? 
doctrine — those amongst them who by universal consent are regarded 
as the most learned and judicious critics — are forced to acknowledge 
that the oneness spoken of is a moral, not a metaphysical, union, — 
a union similar to that which Christ prayed to God might subsist 
between his followers and himself, — then is there a strong presump- 
tion that the Scriptures contain no evidence whatever for the dogma 
of Christ's real or essential identity with the Father. 

Let us take another illustration, in respect to the evidence for the 
doctrine of a Triune God. We will assume as a fact, what indeed no 
one can gainsay, that the grounds for controversy on this point have 
been greatly narrowed. All, at any rate, admit that certain texts are, 
or appear to be, much mpre favorable than others to the doctrine in 
question. Of these it is impossible to select two which are more to 
the purpose than Matt, xxviii. 19, and 1 John v. 7 ; — the former 
containing the command of Jesus to the apostles, that they should 
" teacii all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; " and the latter stating that " there are 
three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the 
Holy Ghost ; and these three are one." If, in the volume of divine 
revelation, there be any thing which approaches hi phraseology or in 
meaning to the terms used in the formulas of modern Orthodoxy, it 
is surely the language and significance of these passages ; and, more 
regardful of the nominal resemblances than of the real differences, a 
Trinitarian might, with some show of reason, exclaim, " Here, here, at 
least, if nowhere else in the Bible, God the Father, God the Son, and 
God the Holy Ghost, are declared to be three persons in one God, the 
same in substance, and equal in power and glory." And yet what are 
the facts of the case, as admitted by the interpretations and criticisms 
of not a few Trinitarians themselves ? That neither of these passages 
demonstrates the doctrine in question; that neither of these contains 



CONCESSIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES OF UNITARIANIS^I. 11 

a syllable respecting equality of perfections, or unity of essence ; that 
neither utters a word about the essential Deity of the Son or of the 
Holy Ghost; that neither teaches the dogma of there being three 
persons in one God; — that the baptismal formula merely implies 
the great truth, which all believers were to profess, that Christianity 
originated from God, was communicated to men by Christ, and was 
confirmed by the gifts and influences of the Holy Spirit; and that 
the oneness of the three heavenly witnesses was nothing more than a 
unity of testimony.* 

But not only have many learned, judicious, and candid writers in 
the orthodox body been unable to discern satisfactory proof for the 
doctrines of a Triune God, and the personal Deity of Christ and 
the Holy Ghost, in those texts, singly and separately considered, 
which have been deemed by others as perfectly demonstrative : not 
a few have conceded that there are whole classes of passages and 
entire books of the Bible winch afford no evidence whatever for 
Trinitarianism. Thus it has been acknowledged not only by Roman 
Catholic but by Protestant divines, of whom the number is increasing 
every day with the increase of knowledge as to the true modes 
of investigating the sense of Scripture, that the Old Testament affords 
nought but the faintest glimmerings of the dogma of a Triune God ; 
by others that it is altogether silent on the subject of a plurality in 
the divine nature ; by others, again, that the great Teacher himself, the 
Founder and Perfecter of our Faith, taught not these and other re- 
lated tenets of Orthodoxy ; and that the apostles, even after they were 
furnished with the fullest supplies of inspiration, when they obtained 



* For the sake of illustration, and to give the utmost possible benefit to the 
Trinitarian argument, we have taken for granted that the passage was written by 
St. John. But, by a majority of critics of all denominations, this is denied ; and the 
amount of evidence which they adduce for ih^ir opinion cannot but be regarded 
as sufficient to banish it for ever from a place in the Sacred Volume. Strict accuracy 
requires it to be said, that the interpolation is contained in a portion both of the 
seventh and the eighth verse, as follows : — "In heaven, the Father, the Word, and 
the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness 
in earth " 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

such ideas of the nature of Christ's kingdom as they had been incapable 
of comprehending from the lips of their Master, did not, in their oral 
discourses, deliver those doctrines concerning God, Christ, and the 
Spirit, which have been commonly regarded by " evangelical " writers 
as saving truths of the gospel. The eminent and good men who make 
these admissions rest their faith chiefly on a few texts in the writings of 
John and Paul, — texts, however, of a kind which, from their obscurity 
or their susceptibility of being rendered or explained in different and 
contrary ways, cannot, according to principles professedly adopted by 
almost all Christians of the present day, be consistently regarded as 
affording undoubted evidence for the truth of any controverted point. 
Generally speaking, indeed, the principles of interpretation which are 
now laid down by the most intelligent and the most esteemed critics 
in orthodox churches, while leaving intact the web of divine truth, as 
to the Unity of God, which is so beautifully woven by patriarchs, 
prophets, evangelists, and apostles, necessarily sweejD away unnumbered 
cobwebs as to essences, hypostases, personalities, and distinctions, which 
have been spun by dogmatic and mystical divines, and hung by them 
on every leaf of Sacred Writ. 

But still more : with scarcely a dissentient voice, the most distin- 
guished theologians of all sects have acknowledged that reason 
and revelation alike proclaim the existence of one, and of only one, 
Supreme Mind, one self-existent Being, one unrivalled and infinite 
Intelligence, the original Source of all existence, — of all that is great 
and good and blessed ; and, with a harmony but partially interrupted, 
they have also acknowledged, — what, indeed, seems inseparable 
from the former admission, — that the doctrine of three co-equal and 
co-eternal persons in the divine nature — the doctrine that calls one 
person, God; another person, God; and a third, God; and which 
pronoimces these three to be only one God — is a doctrine that 
cannot be discovered by the use of the highest powers of the human 
intellect ; is a mystery respecting which philosophy and metaphysics 
may speculate, but which they cannot prove to be true ; on which the 



THE RUINS OF TRINITARIANISM. 13 

heavens shed no light; and at which "Reason stands aghast, and 
Faith herself is half confounded." 

Now, we would ask if it be at all probable that a doctrine can 
be founded in truth, — can with propriety be termed a doctrine 
of revelation, — can really be an article of the Jewish or the Christian 
faith, which so many of its clearest-sighted advocates concede to be 
undeveloped in the universe of. matter and of mind, — not recognized 
by Abraham and the other patriarchs, — not announced by Moses or 
any of his fellow-prophets, — in fact, not known to any of the ancient 
Hebrews, — not revealed by Jesus during his ministry, or preached 
by his earliest disciples ; and which is to be inferred only from a few 
dark and ambiguous passages in the New Testament, or rather in 
the writings of but two of the apostles. 

We would, however, avoid rashness in drawing the inference, — - so 
as to settle the question at issue, — that Trinitarianism is unquestion- 
ably false because its best and most judicious advocates have rejected 
as irrelevant so much of that Scriptural proof which had so frequently 
been insisted on by others in every variety of form. But at the same 
time we cannot avoid concluding, that the whole fabric of Trinitarian- 
ism must be exceedingly weak, and rest on an insecure foundation, 
when those supports which have been deemed the strongest are 
acknowledged by its owners to be altogether powerless; when not 
only beam after beam, but pillar after pillar, are overthrown, not by 
the rude, unhallowed hands of " heretics," but by the softer and more 
gentle touches of those who would fain be sheltered under its roof; 
and when the firmest ground on which their temple stands has been 
proved to be, not a rock, but sand, by the clear-sightedness and candor 
of the very men who, amid the falling ruins and crumbling fragments, 
seem vainly to think that they will find a refuge under those win^s 
from which others of their friends have been glad to escape. 

It may appear strange, that, after giving up as weak and irrelevant 
the strongest and the most pertinent proofs that can be adduced in 
support of an opinion, good and wise men should still cling to it with 

2 



1 4 INTRODUCTION. 

a tenacity which cannot be loosened by evidence of a contrary nature 5 
that, after abandoning their best arms as perfectly useless, and their 
most secure positions as wholly untenable, they should not at last be 
constrained to yield up the whole matter of debate, with all their 
instruments of aggression and defence, instead of having recourse, as 
they do, to ground unfirm as a morass, and to weapons weak as straw. 
But this inconsistency is often observable in predilections of various 
kinds. Every day do we see men, judicious and sensible in other 
respects, tenaciously holding opinions, which they have been in the 
habit of cherishing from an early period, not only in religion and 
theology, but in politics, in literature, in matters of business, and in 
the common affairs of life, long after they have acknowledged that 
the main grounds for their adherence to them have given way. 
And thus it seems to be in regard to those who, abandoning proof 
after proof, text after text, — some of these being passages of 
Scripture which have been generally adduced as the very bulwarks 
of the Trinitarian doctrine, — still cling with affection, if not with 
ardor, to the doctrine itself. To their minds it may be hallowed by 
the sentiment of filial love, by the reminiscences of youthful piety, 
by the associations of kindred and of social brotherhood, and by the 
spiritual nutriment which they have drawn from such portions of truth 
as have been blended and incorporated with it, but which, by an 
illusion of the imagination, they suppose to be derived from the 
doctrine itself. The mere fact, then, of a belief in dogmas whose 
chief proofs have been conceded to be weak, irrelevant, or nugatory, 
can afford no reason for supposing that arguments of a more shadowy 
and obscure nature are sufficient evidence for the truth of the dog- 
mas themselves. 

The character and force of the argument here employed, in sup- 
porting the doctrine of the simple Unity of God, will, no doubt, be 
estimated very differently by different minds; but that it is of no 
inconsiderable weight may be evinced by the fact, that Christians of 
ill denominations most readily and gladly wield it, when, in combating 




THE "ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM." 15 

with unbelievers, they adduce from the works of eminent Deists 
testimonies favorable to the supreme excellence of Jesus' character, 
to the special divinity of his mission, or to the unrivalled holiness and 
benign influences of Ins religion. And that this mode of reasoning is 
universally admitted to be legitimate, except perhaps by those against 
whom it is urged, may also be shown from the practice of orators, 
philosophers, prophets, and apostles, ay, and of Christ himself, who 
have not scrupled to defend the cause of truth and righteousness by 
appealing to the principles of their adversaries, by arraying against 
them the inconsistencies and contradictions into which they may have 
fallen, and using the concessions which they may have made either 
spontaneously or with reluctance. 

We have dwelt at some length on this point, because desirous 
of exhibiting to the reader the principal aim and nature of the 
following work. But we have had in view another object, which, 
though in some respects only subsidiary to the argument spoken of, is 
of higher importance to the interests of truth; namely, that of pre- 
senting the grounds on which rest the criticisms and expositions that 
are deemed favorable to the principles of Unitarianism ; of assigning 
the reasons which have led members of orthodox churches to abandon, 
one after another, the proof-texts once so commonly adduced in sup- 
port of Trinitarianism. Here the appeal to the bare concessions 
of opponents may be laid aside • for it is evident that the argument 
drawn from the authority of orthodox writers, however eminent they 
may have been for their talents and then* learning, — from their 
acknowledgment of doubts and difficulties in regard to the true 
import of passages which have been often pronounced as alien to 
Unitarianism, and from their approval or application of modes of 
exposition destructive to the alleged evidence for the doctrine of a 
Triune God, — that this argument — the argumentum ad hominem, 
pertinent as we have seen it to be in other cases, and consistent with 
the highest aims of a truth-loving spirit — should not be deemed as 
of the same importance, or be urged with the same amount of zeaL 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

as when it is accompanied by evidence for the justness of the admis- 
sions. Singly wielded, though tending to unsettle the foundations of 
what is regarded as error, it is perhaps too antagonistic, withdrawing 
the mind from the true state of the question, and the conditions on 
which it is to be settled ; perplexing, rather than enlightening, the 
understanding in its search after truth ; and not altogether satisfactory 
to a soul longing for the possession of what is real and positive in 
matters of religion. 

It is therefore natural and proper to ask, Why is any particular 
interpretation of a passage to be preferred to others ? Why are the 
testimonies which have so generally been relied on as worthy of trust 
to be no longer entitled to credence and respect ? " I am astonished," 
it may be said by one who has been brought up in " the straitest sect " 
of the Trinitarian theology, and been duly furnished with the proof- 
texts in its favor, but who has had only slight opportunities of judging 
of the discrepancies of opinion and interpretation existing among 
orthodox writers, — "I am astonished beyond measure when you lay 
before me the names of a host of. Trinitarians, who have, in one way 
or another, been sapping the very foundations of their own belief ; 
who, for example, in opposition to my Catechism and my Creed, agree 
with Unitarians in saying in the strongest terms, that the title * Son 
of God,' used of Jesus Christ, does not imply his participation or his 
possession of the divine essence. I know not what to think of it ; 
but, though I have been led to esteem many of these as among the 
ablest friends of the Trinitarian doctrine, they seem to be snatching 
from me one of the main supports of my hope and confidence in the 
Redeemer. Reasons conclusive to their minds must have existed for 
their thus yielding up the old positions, and adopting the views which 
I, and many of my brethren, have regarded as new and heretical. 
Now, tell me what these reasons are, that my own mind may be 
satisfied whether they are false or true." 

To a request so amply justified by the duty of individual examina- 
tion, answers will be given, whenever practicable, by the authors who 



PLAN OF THE WORK. 17 

have made the concessions; sometimes colored, indeed, as may be 
expested, by the hues of a peculiar phraseology, but agreeing in the 
main with the interpretations or the arguments which have been 
proposed and urged by Unitarians. In some cases, however, they 
will be presented without any formal statement of reasons, either be- 
cause they are not assigned by the writers from whom we quote; 
because they are so evidently just as to require no proof; or because, 
having been already stated by one or more of the witnesses cited, it 
will be unnecessary to reiterate them, as it may well be supposed, 
that others, in propounding similar interpretations, were influenced by 
similar reasons. 

To afford the reader a more comprehensive idea of the plan we 
mean to pursue in conducting our argument, it may not be improper 
to exhibit the order in which the subjects will be treated : — 

1. We will, in the first place, exhibit the sentiments of distinguished 
Trinitarians, to show that the spirit of sectarianism is inconsistent with 
the spirit of Christianity ; meaning, by the term " sectarianism," not 
in honest preference of one form of Christian faith to another ; not a 
well-grounded attachment to a particular denomination, as better 
adapted than others to promote the principles of piety, benevolence, 
and truth ; not a calm and continuous effort to diffuse such opinions 
as, after due inquiry, we think best calculated to advance the glory of 
God and the good of man, — but an absorbing interest in the pettiest 
of theologic peculiarities; a fiery zeal for externals and ceremonies, 
mysteries and mysticisms; a fond predilection for the differences 
which separate Christians from one another, and a supreme unconcern 
for the agreements which unite them ; a punctilious payment of " tithe 
md anise and cummin," with a non-observance of the " weightier 
matters of the law " and the gospel, — " justice, mercy, and fideily ; ' 
a demoniac desire to burn the bodies and to damn the souls of those 
who will not bow down before the idols of their vain and narrow 
imagination. 

2* 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

2, Having quoted sentiments fraught with the purest spirit of 
Christianity and of Catholicism, — some of them glowing with love 
to Christian disciples of every name, and others with good-will to the 
universal family of God, whatever religion they may profess ; some of 
them giving expression to a righteous indignation at the gross forms 
of bigotry, of personal hate and destruction, which marked the darker 
times of our forefathers, and others rebuking the more subdued and 
refined, but not less galling, species of persecution which is sometimes 
seen at the present day, and which consists of the denial of Christian 
intercourse and Christian communion to those who, though sincerely 
aiming to worship the God and Father of all, to reverence his beloved 
Son and Messenger, and to cherish, in all their thoughts and pursuits, 
the holy and benignant spirit of their Master, have dared to differ 
from the opinions which are generally received ; — having cited these 
golden sentiments, as set forth in the writings of orthodox believers, 
we will proceed, in the second place, to state the views of the same 
authors, or of others belonging to the same churches, in respect to the 
right and duty of every man to employ his powers in the attainment 
of religious truth ; to be animated by such dispositions, and to adopt 
such means, as are most conducive to this end ; and to avoid, as far as 
in him lies, those tendencies of his nature, and those influences around 
him, which are calculated to impede his progress, or to lead him into 
error. 

3. As immediately and intimately connected with this department of 
our work, we will next prove, by the aid of a few of the most eminent 
Trinitarian Protestants, that reason and revelation are the only legiti- 
mate standards of religious doctrine ; that they are perfectly consistent 
with, and never antagonistic to, each other ; that the disparagement 
of the intellectual powers is followed by the most pernicious results ; 
that, if interpreted by the lights which can be thrown over it, Holy 
Writ is sufficient, without the decrees of synods and councils, the 
authority of popes and churches, or the dicta of fathers, priests, and 
reformers, to be a rule of faith and communion for all the disciples 



PLAN OF THE WORK. 19 

of Jesus ; but that, on the other hand, the exercise of private judgment 
will not guard us against many errors of belief and practice, unless we 
be careful to study the Bible with the simple view of learning the 
sense intended by the writers, or by the speakers whose sentiments 
they report ; and to discriminate, in that collection of most holy books, 
between the local and the universal, the temporary and the eternal, the 
human and the divine, — between the words and thoughts of man and 
the wisdom and revelation of God. 

4. We shall then be prepared to inquire whether the Christianity 
of the New Testament be a simple or a mysterious religion, — 
whether, in its essence and character, it be speculative or active, 
theoretical or practical; a system of dogmas, or a development of 
principles ; a series of unknown and unintelligible propositions which 
must be subscribed to and believed in, or a revelation of truths which 
common minds may understand, sincere and honest hearts appreciate, 
and all men reduce to practice. And the result of this inquiry will 
be found to be, according to the excellent observations of some dis- 
tinguished Trinitarians, that the religion of Christ is, in its sublime 
simplicity, and in its conformity with the highest reason, adapted alike 
to the capacity of the many and the few, — of the peasant and the 
philosopher. 

5. Christianity is therefore simple, consistent with itself, and easily 
understood; while, on the contrary, Trinitarianism is a system of 
dogmas which are either unintelligible or self-contradictory. The 
"Trinity" of the New Testament and of the Apostolic Church — 
if we may use a term unknown to Scripture — consists of a moral 
and not a metaphysical union ; a union of will and purpose between 
the universal Father, his best-beloved Son, and (to complete the 
figure) the spirit of power and wisdom which God imparted to Christ, 
and, through Christ, to the apostles. But the Trinity of creeds, — 
the Trinity which has no place in the New Testament, — the Trinity 
which would either identify the Son and Servant of God with his 
Father and Proprietor, and the Holy Ghost, as a separate person, with 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

the Father and the Son ; or would represent three conscious persona 
as only one conscious Being ; or three infinite beings as only one God ; 
or three names or characters of the Deity, the one as sending, and the 
others as sent, — the one as inspiring, and the others as inspired, — 
the one as a Petitioner, the other as a person or being to whom 
petitions are presented, and the third as neither praying nor being 
prayed to, — this Trinity of human creeds, in whatever manner it may 
have been exhibited, is a doctrine which shocks the unperverted mind, 
and is as much repugnant to reason and common sense as is the tenet 
of Transubstantiation itself. Tins conclusion may be fairly deduced 
from, if it is not always expressed in, the language made use of by 
the Roman Catholics and Protestants, all professed Trinitarians, from 
whom we mean to quote. 

6. Happily for the consistency of God's ways, or for the faith of his 
human family, the doctrine of a Triune God is not only abhorrent to 
the principles of our nature, but it is not a doctrine of revelation. 
It is not expressly disclosed in the Bible, if, indeed, it can be proved 
at all from the records by any just principles of interpretation. Some 
Roman Catholics say that it cannot be demonstrated from {Scripture, 
but must be received on the authority of the church; and many 
orthodox Protestants grant, that, so far from being clearly revealed, 
it can only be inferred from the comparison of one passage with 
another. It is reasoned out of Sacred Scripture. But reason recoils 
at the doctrine, and Scripture does not reveal it. 

7. The Unity of God, however, is the basis of all religion, natural 
or revealed. It is the express doctrine of the Bible, and harmonizes 
with the highest conceptions which we can form of the great First 
Cause. From the one Self-existent have all other beings had their 
origin and their powers, from the worm up to the archangel, including 
Christ himself. So say the most enlightened Trinitarians, however 
inconsistent they may be in their speculations ; and hence probably 
the painful emotions of their hearts and the scepticism of their under- 
standings as to the propriety of paying supreme homage to any other 



PLAN OF THE WORK. 21 

than the Infinite One, without regard to a distinction of persons in the 
Deity, — to any other than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

8. The best-beloved Son of God, the unrivalled Teacher, the highest 
Image of the divine glory and goodness, the destined Redeemer of 
a world fettered by sin, was, in his nature and his attributes, in his 
offices on earth and his functions in heaven, inferior to the Father, the 
only Self-existent and the single original Cause of all things. The 
true grandeur of Christ's character, the chief dignity of his person, so 
far as it has been taught in the records concerning him, lies not in 
his having assumed to himself perfect equality with his Maker and his 
God, for such a notion could never have entered for a moment into 
his humble and devout mind, — but in accompHshing the great and 
benevolent work to which he was appointed, in perfect, unqualified 
dependence on, and submission to, that Being whom in his prayers 
and thanksgivings he addressed as " the Father " and " the only true 
God." Many Trinitarians have acknowledged, either explicitly or 
implicitly, and in every variety of form, the entire subordination of 
the Lord Jesus to Almighty God, and his essential as well as official 
inferiority to him. How they can reconcile such notions with their 
professed belief hi the equality of Christ with God, it is not for us to 
say ; for we cannot tell. But we know that all error is inconsistent 
with itself, and we thank them for the admissions which they have 
made. We rejoice that they thus yield, though involuntarily and 
imperfectly, to the Unitarianism of the Gospels, and, indeed, of the 
whole New Testament. 

9. Among the numerous significations of the word " Spirit " in the 
Bible, it is an acknowledged fact, that in a host of passages this term, 
which is sometimes intensified in its import by being changed into 
the phrases " Holy Spirit " and " Spirit of God," denotes the various 
influences and gifts which God imparted to his chosen servants; 
and, in a few cases, signifies God himself, without any reference to 
hypostatical or personal distinctions in the Deity. Al Trinitarians 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

will grant these facts ; and some have openly Donfessed that there are 
certain deficiencies in the Scripture evidence for a third person in the 
Godhead; while others have represented the Holy Ghost, though 
according to them entitled to all the attributes of the Divinity, as 
deriving his existence and his powers either from the Father, or from 
the Father and the Son. 

In thus presenting the order of the subjects discussed in this 
volume, we have mentioned only a few of the most prominent points ; 
but they are all intimately related to each other, and contain the gist 
of what seems to us a strong presumptive argument against the 
doctrine of the Trinity. To unfold and apply this argument, — to 
take up, according to the order in which they occur in the Bible, all 
the texts which have been adduced on behalf of the doctrine of a 
Triune God, or of the Supreme Divinity of Christ and the Holy 
Ghost ; and, by the assistance of the most learned and distinguished 
writers in orthodox churches, to show that these passages, whether 
regarded singly or in combination with others, afford no just grounds 
for believing in the mysteries of Trinitarianism ; that the principles 
of criticism and interpretation adopted by scholars and divines are, 
at least in particular instances and applications, essentially the same 
as those employed by Unitarians, and lead, if consistently followed 
up, to a recognition, in the strictest sense of the terms, of the great 
Scripture truths, that " Jehovah is One," and that the Father is 
" the only true God," — to do this would be a work requiring several 
additional volumes, which are in course of preparation, and which we 
intend, at some future time, by the divine blessing, to lay before the 
public* As setting forth the general principles on which the whole 
argument rests, the present volume may be regarded as complete, 
and is therefore published by itself. 



* In the " Concessions of Trinitarians," which the writer published in 1842, this 
has been partially done; but, that work being out of print, he is now occupied in 
increasing it to such an extent as to justify the remark made above. 



PLAN OF THE WOHK. 23 

We greatly mistake if the lessons inculcated in this volume by so 
many good and learned men, and the criticisms and comments on 
certain passages of Scripture which will be quoted in the other por- 
tions of the work from their writings, will not tend to prove, that in 
the human heart of Christendom, though choked up by the rubbish of 
man's device, there are springs of pure feeling and generous thought 
which now and then bubble up and flow into the great channel of 
love and truth, diffusing, wherever they spread, fertility and happiness 
on all around ; — that, notwithstanding the walls of partition which 
have been erected by bigotry and narrow-minded creeds between the 
followers of the same Lord and Master, there are in the soul, affec- 
tions, cherished and warmed by the gospel, which overleap these 
barriers, and attract men and Christians together ; — that among the 
corruptions of Christianity and the diversities of sectaries, there still 
exist the stamina of evangelical truth; that there are principles of 
religion which are held in common by all denominations, however 
obscured for a time by the mists of error and the fumes of strife ; that 
these principles are the chief glory of Christianity and of Unitarianism 5 
and that the day is arriving, though in the eyes of the present genera- 
tion it may be slow in its approach, when the dominion of bigotry 
will wholly cease ; when the prayer of Jesus for catholic union among 
his disciples will be answered ; and when, instead of attributing infalli- 
bility to erring men, Supreme Divinity to the holy but humble Son 
and Servant of the Most High, and eternal glory and honor to a 
Trinity in Unity or a Unity in Trinity, universal Christendom will say, 
in the language of the Apocalypse, "We give thee thanks, O 
Lord God Almighty, who art, and wast, and art to come! 
because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and 
hast reigned." 



UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES 



CONFIRMED BY 



TRINITARIAN TESTIMONIES. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SPIRIT OF SECTARIANISM INCONSISTENT WITH THE 
SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY. 



SECT. L - THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE. 

The new religion — final, perfect, pure — 

Was that of Christ and love. His great command, 

His all-sufficing precept, — was't not love ? 

P. J. Bailet. 

Christianity is a gospel of peace and charity. It commands us to 
love and to do good to all men, even our very enemies ; to bless them 
that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for those 
that despitefully use us and persecute us. And can those be its 
disciples who scatter nothing but hatred and malice, confusion and 
disorder, wherever they come, and make it a matter of conscience to 
root out and destroy from off the earth all those that differ from 

them ? As to the business of charity, God forbid that any 

differences in religion whatever . . . should ever make us deny that to 
our fellow-Christians. . . . There is no honest, sincere Christian, how 
erroneous soever he may be, but what at least is persuaded that he 
is in the right; and looks upon us to be as far from the truth by 
differing from him, as we esteem him for not agreeing with us. Now 
if, upon the sole account of such differences, it be lawful for us to hate 
another, we must for the very same reason allow it to be as lawful for 
him also to hate us. Thus shall we at once invert the characteristic 
of our religion, w By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, 

a 



26 THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE. 

if ye have love one to another." . . . How much rather ought we to 
consider, with our apostle, the love of our dear Master to us, even 
whilst we were yet his enemies, and love those whom we ought to 
hope, notwithstanding all their errors, are yet still his friends ; and not 
think those unworthy of our charity whom we piously presume God 
will not think unworthy of his favor ? ... If they are mistaken, I am 
sure our uncharitableness is not the way to convince them of their 
er*;or, but may rather indispose them to consider the weight of our 
arguments as they ought, whilst they see so little regard in our affec- 
tions towards them O blessed state of the church militant here 

on earth ! — the glorious antepast of that peace and piety which God 
has prepared for his church triumphant in heaven ! Who would not 
wish to see those days when a general reformation, and a true zeal, 
and a perfect charity, passing through the world, we should all be 
united in the same faith, the same worship, the same communion and 
fellowship one with another? — when, all pride and prejudice, all 
interests and designs, being submitted to the honor of God and the 
discharge of our duty, the Holy Scriptures shall again triumph over 
the vain traditions of men, and religion no longer take its denomina- 
tion from little sects and factions, but we shall all be content with the 
same common primitive names of Christians and brethren, and live 
together as becomes our character, in brotherly love and Christian 
charity with one another ? — Archbishop Wake : Sermons and 
Discourses, pp. 102, 191-4, 202. 

I must hasten to recommend to you another thing of unspeakable 
importance to the well-being of Christian society, — a spirit of uni- 
versal love. Let not bigotry or party-zeal be so much as once named 
amongst you ; for it becometh not saints. Our Lord was a stranger 
to it. Whosoever did the will of his Father, the same was his 
brother, his sister, his mother. Wherever he saw the marks of true 
faith, though in a centurion or a Syrophenician, who were aliens to the 
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, 
how did he publish and commend it ! Be followers, then, of him, my 
brethren, as dear children ; and love all who love our Lord Jesus in 
sincerity and truth, although they should not in all things follow with 
us. . . . Why should not the children of God, notwithstanding their 
little differences, unite in one common interest against spiritual wicked- 
nesses in high places ? Oh that all who call themselves Christians 
were thus minded ! — George Whitefield : Letter to the Religious 
Societies of England ; in Works, vol iv. pp. 29, 30. 



THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE. 27 

It is impossible to conceive a greater contrast between the spirit 
which his [Christ's] instructions breathe, and that spirit of pride and 
domination which, not many centuries afterwards, became the pre- 
dominant spirit of what then came to be denominated the church. 
Again and again did Christ admonish his apostles and other followers 
to live as brethren and equals, not to affect a superiority over their 
fellow-disciples or over one another ; inasmuch as, in this, his king- 
dom would differ in its fundamental maxims from all the kingdoms 
of the world; that that person alone would there be deemed the 
greatest whose deportment should be the humblest, and he alone 
superior who should prove most serviceable to the rest. . . . When 
the disciples privately contended among themselves who should be 
greatest, he took occasion to warn them against ambition. . . . The same 
maxims were warmly inculcated by his apostles; and in their time, 
under the happy influence of their instructions, generally prevailed 
among Christians. — Dr. Geo. Campbell : Lectures on Ecclesiastical 
History, Lect. 2. 

Thus you see [referring to Luke xvii. 15-19], though the Jews 
iearnt no humility, no gratitude, yet the Samaritan, ignorant as he was 
then thought, misinformed as he is now reckoned — yet the Samaritan 
was deeply impressed with both. The Almighty himself taught him, 
and he was obedient to the divine Instructor. The pride of religion 
would make the Jews brand him with the factious name of heretic or 
schismatic ; but, were he heretic or schismatic, he offered to heaven as 
grateful a sacrifice as was ever laid on the altar at Jerusalem by 
prophet or by saint. The contentions about the forms of religion 
destroy its essence. Authorized by the example of Jesus Christ, we 
will send men to the Samaritan to find out how to worship. Though 
your church was pure, without spot or imperfection, yet, if your heart 
is not turned to God, the worship is hateful, and the prayers are an 
abomination. The homage of the darkest Pagan, worshipping he 
knows not what, but still worshipping the unknown Power that formed 
him, if he bows with humility, if he praises with gratitude, his homage 
will ascend grateful to heaven ; while the dead, careless formality of 
prayer, offered up in the proudest Christian temples, shall be rejected 
as an offering unholy. For think you that the Almighty esteems 
names and sects ? Xo : it is the heart that he requires, — it is the 
heart alone that he accepts. And much consolation does this afford to 
the contemplative mind of man. We may be very ignorant in spiritual 
matters, if that ignorance cannot be removed, and yet may be very 



28 THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE, 

safe. We may not know in what words to clothe our desires in 
prayer, or where to find language worthy of being presented to the 
Majesty of heaven. But, amidst the clouds that surround us, here is 
our comfort: In every nation, he that worshippeth with humility, 
worshippeth aright; he that praiseth with gratitude, praise th well. 
The pride of establishments may despise him ; but the wisdom and the 
righteousness of heaven will hear, and will approve him. It was to 
the humble, thankful Samaritan, though separated from the true 
church, — yes, it was to him alone, because he alone returned to glo- 
rify God, — that Jesus Christ said, " Arise, go thy way : thy faith hath 
made thee whole." Thus in a moment vanished, and became of no 
effect, the temple of the Jews, built by prophetic direction ; its ritual, 
given by their illuminated legislator; all gave way to the profound 
humility and the sublime gratitude of what they called an unbeliever, 
— of what Jesus Christ called the only faithful servant of God among 
them. — Prebendary CominCxS, of St. Patrick's, Dublin : Sermons 
on the Spiritual Kingdom of the Messiah. 

Dr. George Campbell, from whom we borrow this fine extract, says, in 
his work on Ecclesiastical History, that the sentiments quoted '* convey an 
idea of the church truly rational, enlarged, and sublime ; such as strongly 
distinguishes it from all the pitiful and contracted pales, so uncharitably 
erected by the different sectaries of all known denominations, Popish and 
Protestant, established and unestablished. For it is not a legal establishment, 
as some vainly imagine, or any thing merely external, that either makes 
or unmakes a sectary in the Scriptural sense : it is solely the spirit by which 
a man is actuated." 

Benevolence is the great principle on which Christianity is founded ; 
and it tends equally to the honor of religion, and the advantage of 
society, that Christ exacts from his disciples, in their conduct towards 
each other, the same illustrious quality that was displayed on the part 
of God in the redemption of mankind. The impetuosity of wrath, 
the bitterness of evil-speaking, and the cruelty of revenge, are 
peremptorily forbidden in every page of the gospel. That man is 
there pointed out by the sacred writers as the most acceptable servant 
of Christ, who cultivates a large and generous love towards his fellow- 
creatures; who seeks for opportunities of doing them good; who 
diligently retreats from every temptation to injure them ; and who, by 
a happy union of prudence with good-nature, lives peaceably with all 
men, . . . . If you would act up to the spirit of the gospel, . . . you must 
not suffer the love of your neighbor to be narrowed and enfeebled by 



THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OP LOVE. 29 

any fortuitous circumstance of rank or locality or religious persuasion. 
You must consider acquaintances and strangers, friends and foes, 
countrymen and foreigners, the members of your own and every other 
Christian community, tne followers of Confucius and Mahomet as well 
as of Christ, heretics and schismatics, dogmatists and sceptics, mono- 
theists and polytheists, the enlightened and peaceful inhabitant of 
towns in a civilized society and the mid savage roaming for his pre\ 
through the trackless forest, the sceptered monarch and the humble 
cottager, — you must consider all of them as forming one great flock, 
placed here in one spacious fold, under one good Shepherd, who, in his 
own good time and for his own good purposes, will hereafter separate 
the better from the worse, and consign them to their proper stations, 
according to the measure which he only can know of their respective 
merits and demerits. — Dr. Samuel Parr : Sermon on Rom. xii. 18, 
and Sermon on the Two Commandments ; in Works, vol. vi. pp. 679, 
and 364-5. 

It is delightful to meet with sentiments so just and beautiful as these, — 
with principles of candor so fraught with the spirit of Jesus, — with views 
of humanity so accordant with the whole genius of the Christian faith. 

Let truth be shrined in argument ; for this is its appropriate glory. 
And it is a sore disparagement inflicted upon it by the hand of 
vindictive theologians, when, instead of this, it is shrined in anathema, 
or brandished as a weapon of dread and of destruction over the heads 
of all who are compelled to do it homage. The terrible denuncia- 
tions of Athanasius have not helped — they have injured the cause. 
The Godhead of Christ is not thus set forth in the New Testament. 
It is nowhere proposed in the shape of a mere dictatorial article, or as 
a naked dogma, for the understanding alone ; and at one place it is 
introduced as an episode for the enforcement of a moral virtue. In 
this famous passage [Phil. ii. 3 — 8], the practical lesson occupies the 
station of principal, as the main or capital figure of the piece; and 
the doctrine on which so many would effervesce all their zeal, even to 
exhaustion, stands to it but in the relation of a subsidiary. ... In these 
verses, there is a collateral lesson for our faith; but the chief, the 

direct lesson is a lesson of charity, which is greater than faith We 

pr )test, by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ ; by the tears 
of him who wept at Lazarus' tomb, and over the approaching ruin of 
Jerusalem ; by every word of blessing that he uttered, and by every 
footstep of this wondro is visitor over the surface of a land on which 

3* 



30 THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE. 

he went about doing good continually, : — we protest in the name of 
all these unequivocal demonstrations, that they do him an injustice 
who propound this message [the gospel message] in any other way 
than as a message of friendship to our species. He came not to 
condemn, but to save ; not to destroy, but to keep alive. — Dr. Thos. 
Chalmers : Select Works, vol. iiL pp. 260-1, 263, New York edition. 

From the beautiful sentiments here set forth, it is evident, that, strongly 
attached as this good and great man was to Calvinistic and Trinitarian 
theology, Dr. Chalmers regarded the virtues of meekness and humility, 
exemplified by Jesus Christ and recommended by the Apostle Paul, as of 
far higher importance than a belief in the doctrine of Christ's Supreme Deity; 
and that he felt no sympathy with that spirit of exclusiveness and of 
denunciation which has so often impregnated the " Orthodoxy " of hi9 
church. In passing, however, it may be remarked, that his interpretation 
of Paul's language is founded on a misconception of its meaning. This 
will be shown under Phil. ii. 6, in a succeeding volume. 

Instead of imbibing, countenancing, or warranting intolerance and 
bigotry, he [Christ] taught, in all instances, their odiousness and guilt ; 
and enjoined, with respect to every subject and person, the most 
absolute moderation, liberality, and candor ; not, indeed, the fashionable 
liberality of licentious men in modern times, — a professed indifference 
to truth and holiness, but a benevolent and catholic spirit towards 
every man, and a candid and just one towards every argument and 
opinion. Distinctions of nations, sects, or party, as such, were to him 
nothing : distinctions of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, were to 
him every thing. According to this scheme, he framed his instruc- 
tions and his life; and the same catholic spirit and freedom from 
intolerance characterize the writings of his apostles. — T. Hartwell 
Horxe : Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, vol. i. p. 167. 

Christianity itself condemns as decisively the evil tempers generated 
by religious disagreements, as it condemns any other immoralities j 
clearly, itself is a religion of love and meekness; and moreover it 
contains (however little they have hitherto been regarded) sufficient 
and very precise provisions, securing to Christians liberty of conscience, 
while cordial fellowship is not disturbed. The religion of Christ 
should therefore bear none of the blame accruing from religious 
strifes. — Isaac Taylor : Lectures on Spiritual Christianity, p. 182, 
New York edition. 

True love seeketh not its own. It rejoices in the truth, by whom- 
soever professed or disseminated. If Christ is preached, whether in 



THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE. 31 

pretence or in truth, it rejoices, yea, and. will rejoice. It does not 
rebuke a man because he prefers to labor in a field different from that 
of his neighbor, or cut down the spiritual harvest with a different 
implement, or w r ear a costume somewhat plainer or more costly. It 
does not meet the report of a victory in the Christian cause with cold 
indifference, or with a hesitating approval, till it has first learned what 
particular sect has the agency, or will receive the benefit. It nobly 
overlooks all such things. It plants itself on no such narrow grounds. 
Its object is not to make proselytes, but to save souls; not to count 
up converts to this or that dogma, but to honor the Redeemer of the 
w r orld, Wherever, in whomsoever, it can discern the lineaments of 
bis blessed image, it welcomes him to communion, and rejoices in his 
prosperity. This is the spirit of Christ and of his apostles, unless the 
New Testament is wholly misinterpreted. In proportion as you love 
the cause of Christ as such, you may believe that your love is sincere, 
and will stand the last fiery test. In proportion as it is concerned 
with a sect as such, and pours out all its sympathy on its own peculiar 
and selected friends, may its genuineness be questioned. To confine 
your affections to one branch of the true church may be a proof of 
spurious love, as it certainly is of a narrow understanding. It may be 
the evidence of an arrogant Pharisaism, rather than of a Christian 
temper. The spirit of Christ was sympathizing, conciliatory, all- 
embracing. He never turned coldly away because a suppliant was a 
poor Syrophenician. He did not resign the heterodox Samaritan to 
the uncovenanted mercies of God. — Bela B. Edwards : Writings, 
vol. i. pp. 455-6. 

Since the days of our Lord's personal ministry, his disciples have 
altered the shibboleth of Christianity. The test-question is not now, 
" Simon Peter, lovest thou me ? " but, " Simon Peter, thinkest thou as 
I do ? " Unless the answ T er be clearly and decidedly affirmative, there 
is but cold welcome to the Master's vineyard : no excellence of piety is 
a sufficient offset to variant opinions, even about things the most ab- 
struse and difficult of determination. No superiority of understanding 
compensates, in its admirable conclusions, for unlawful speculations 
upon subjects concerning which men have done little else than specu- 
late from the beginnings of thought. " Venerable Bede," says John 
Newton, " after giving a high character of some contemporary, adds, 
1 But, unhappy man, he did not keep Easter our way.' " — Dr. T. E. 
Bond, Jun. : Methodist Quarterly Review for April, 1853 ; 4th series, 
voL v. p. 256. 



32 THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE. 

Is it too much to ask such persons [as would abjure the union of 
Christians on any other terms than those of perfect identity of opinion 
with themselves] to place themselves in company with their divine 
Lord, and to follow him through all the scenes of his incarnation, for 
the purpose of asking from what action, or from what expression, 
they can feel authorized to treat with hostility, and to reject with 
scorn, the efforts that are being made to strengthen the bonds of 
brotherhood between his disciples ? Is it from his Sermon upon the 
Mount, when he poured his benediction upon the peace-makers, and 
called them the children of God ? Is it from his frequent rebukes to 
his too litigious followers? Is it from his conversation with the 
woman of Samaria, and his labors on that occasion, among a people 
hated and shunned by his own kindred? Is it from his inimitable 
parable of the good Samaritan? Is it from his reproof of the dis- 
tempered zeal of his disciples, who would have stopped the man that 
cast out demons, because he followed not them? Is it from his 
forbearance with his apostles, under their cloudy apprehensions of 
his doctrine and his will, their impure motives, and their defective 
sanctity ? How wide the interval which separated his religious know- 
ledge and attainments from those of his disciples ! — he, the fountain 
of illumination ; they, encompassed with infirmities : but did he recede 
from them on that account ? No : he drew closer the bond of union, 
imparted successive streams of effulgence, till he incorporated his 
spirit with theirs, and elevated them into a nearer resemblance of 

himself. Is there, notwithstanding our differences, a principle 

known, — a principle attainable by us all, — a principle which is an 
integral part of our religion, — a principle which, if it were more 
cultivated and in full exercise, would subjugate all that is low and 
selfish and malevolent in our nature ; and which, while it filled our 
own bosom with peace, would give us peace with our fellow-Christians 
of every name ? There is. It is Love, — holy love, — heavenly love, — 
Christian love. But where is it to be found ? In the heart of God, in 
the bosom of Jesus, in the minds of angels, in the spirits of just men 
made perfect, and in the pages of the New Testament, we know ; but 
where on earth shall we find it ? It ought to be seen in beauty and 
in vigor in the church of Christ: this is built to be its mansion, 
and for its residence. But how little is it to be found in this its 
own and appropriated abode ! — John Angell James : Union in 
relatioii to the Religious Parties of England; in Essays on Christian 
Union, pp. 206-7, 217-8. 



THE RELIGION OF JESUS THAT OF LOVE. 33 

His [Christ's] most distinct command was to love all mankind ; 
which obligation, on our part, he grounded upon the universal love of 
the Father in heaven, who makes his sun to shine equally upon all 
nations, and sends his rain as plentifully upon those who are iiust 
benighted or deformed by vice, as upon those who are decorated with 
the fairest virtues. The neighbor to be loved as one's self was every 
man without exception ; and, by thus representing love to the weakest 
and most unworthy of mankind, in connection with love to the 
Almighty Father in heaven, as the substance of all morality, oui Lord 
entirely and for ever abolished all party considerations in respect to 
distinction of family, rank, nation, and religion. . . . Christ appeared on 
earth invested with sublime and holy doctrines, which he labored to 
impart, not to sects and sectaries, but to universal man. — E. L. 
Magoox : Republican Christianity, pp. 303-5. 



By introducing these and other extracts on behalf of a spirit which would 
embrace within its grasp all sincere Christians of whatever name or belief, 
and which would not dare appropriate to any one particular sect the pos- 
session of all truth and all saving faith, to the entire exclusion of others, — 
we do not wish to be understood as implying that Trinitarianism is in itself 
or apart from the doctrines with which it is usually connected, naturally 
and necessarily productive of an arrogant or illiberal demeanor towards its 
opponents. All that we mean to indicate is, that, though the unchristian 
and anticatholic spirit has been too frequently allied with the profession 
of Trinitarianism, its best friends are united, in heart and purpose, with its 
greatest foes, in proclaiming Christianity to be a religion of perfect freedom 
and universal love. 

Nor are we so foolish as to imagine, that, by any selection of extracts from 
the writings of good men, we could prove the religion of Jesus to be pre- 
eminently a religion of love. The nominal disciples of Christ may, indeed, 
show, in their conversations and their lives, that they have not yet learned 
the lesson of human brotherhood; and, in justification of their unbelief, the 
enemies of Christianity may point the finger of scorn at the animosities and 
strifes of sectarians, and say, " Behold ! these are the fruits of your religion." 
But no one who opens the New Testament can avoid seeing on almost every 
page, written in characters of light, the glorious doctrine of the fraternity of 
all God's children. If the reader of the gospel records be blind to this blessed 
truth, no mere authority and no mode of reasoning will convince him of it. 
We make the extracts, therefore, not for this purpose, but to exhibit the 
inconsistencies of Christians so called, and to urge them, by considering 
the mercies of God, the benign spirit of the Master whom they profess to 
serve, and their own solemn responsibilities, to give no countenance, by the 
cherishing and manifestation of uncharitable dispositions, to the inference 
of the unbeliever, that Christianity cannot be a revelation from heavsn. 



84 TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL CONTRASTED 



SECT. II. — TRUE ZEAL ACCOMPANIED BY A SPIRIT OF WISDOM, LOVE, 
AND HUMILITY; FALSE ZEAL, BY AN IGNORANT, UNCHARITABLE, 
DOMINEERING, AND PERSECUTING SPIRIT. 

Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer lore. 

Shakspeare. 

"When we would convince men of any error by the strength of 
truth, let us withal pour the sweet balm of love upon their heads. 
Truth and love are two the most powerful things in the world; 
and, when they both go together, they cannot easily be withstood. 
The golden beams of truth and the silken cords of love, twisted 
together, will draw men on with a sweet violence, whether they wil) 
or no, Let us take heed we do not sometimes call that zeal for God 
and his gospel, which is nothing else but our own tempestuous and 
stormy passion. True zeal is a sweet, heavenly, and gentle flame, 
which maketh us active for God, but always within the sphere of love. 
It never calls for fire from heaven to consume those that differ a little 
from us in their apprehensions. It is like that kind of lightning, 
which the philosophers speak of, that melts the sword within, but 
singeth not the scabbard : it strives to save the soul, but hurteth not 
the body. True zeal is a loving thing, and makes us always active to 
edification, and not to destruction. . . . True zeal is an ignis lambens, 
a soft and gentle flame, that will not scorch one's hand : it is no 
predatory or voracious thing. But carnal and fleshly zeal is like the 
spirit of gunpowder set on fire, that tears and blows up all that stands 
before it. . . . Let this soft and silken knot of love tie our hearts 
together ; though our heads and apprehensions cannot meet, as indeed 
they never will, but always stand at some distance off from one another. 
Our zeal, if it be heavenly, if it be true vestal fire kindled from above, 
will not delight to tarry here below, burning up straw and stubble and 
such combustible things, and sending up nothing but gross and earthy 
fumes to heaven ; but it will rise up, and return back pure as it came 
down, and will be ever striving to carry up men's hearts to God along 
with it. It will be only occupied about the promoting of those things 
which are unquestionably good ; and, when it moves in the irascible 
way, it will quarrel with nothing but sin. — Dr. Ralph Cudworth ; 
Sermon I. appended to the Intellectual System of the U7iiverse, vol. ii. 
pp. 574-5 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL CONTRASTED. 33 

1 know those that would draw you into such a contentious zeal 
will tell you, that their cause is the cause of God, and that you desert 
him and betray it if you be not zealous in it ; and that it is but the 
counsel of flesh and blood which maketh you pretend moderation and 
peace and that it is a sign that you are hypocrites, that are so hike- 
warn:, and carnally comply with error; and that the cause of God is 
to be followed with the greatest zeal and self-denial. And all this 
is true, if you be but sure that it is indeed the cause of God, and that 
the greater works of God be not neglected on such pretences, and 
that your zeal be much greater for faith and charity and unity than for 
your opinions. But, upon great experience, I must tell you, that, of 
the zealous contenders in the world that cry up " the cause of God 
and truth," there is not one of very many, that understandeth what he 
talks of; but some of them cry up the cause of God, when it is a brat 
of a proud and ignorant brain, and such as a judicious person would 

be ashamed of. Zeal without judgment hath not only entangled 

souls in many heinous sins, but hath ruined churches and kingdoms ; 
and, under pretence of exceeding others in doing good, it makes men 
the greatest instruments of evil. There is scarce a sin so great and 
odious, but ignorant zeal will make men do it as a good work. Christ 
told his disciples, that those that killed them should think they did 
God service ; and Paul bare record to the murderous, persecuting Jews, 
" that they had a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge." — 
Kichard Baxter : Practical Works, vol. ii. pp. 130-1, 327. 

" The temple of the Lord," said the Jews, as we read in Jere- 
miah, — " The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are 
these." In the same spirit do some of our contemporaries exclaim, 
*' The gospel, the gospel, the gospel of Jesus, is here, and here only." 
Perhaps, my brethren, it were unkind and uncourteous to apply to 
these misguided declaimers those indignant terms in which Jeremiah 
speaks of his countrymen, " Trust not in lying words." But I cannot 
be charged with indecorum or harshness, when I recommend to these 
accusers of my ecclesiastical brethren a little more charity to their 
fellow-Christians, and a little more distrust in themselves ; and much 
more discipline from knowledge, as the correction of headstrong zeal 

and frantic enthusiasm The pride which generates impatience 

of contradiction upon points which have long exercised our intellectual 
faculties, and which we often conceive to be intrinsically of higher 
moment, because we had been accustomed to meditate upon them, 
and to contend for them ; the fondness which we insensibly contract 



36 TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL CONTRASTED. 

for certain formularies of religious belief, and certain modes of religious 
ceremonies ; the dread which we feel of fickleness and lukewarmness 
in what we think the cause of Heaven, when it was really the cause 
of our own prepossessions, our own antipathies, our own credulity, 
and our own ignorance, — all these circumstances may lead us into 
measures which a well-directed and well-disciplined conscience would 
represent to us as injurious to the best interests of society, and adverse 
to the plainest and soundest principles of virtue and religion. To his 
own Master, say those principles, let every religionist stand or fall 
while the Master is not man, but God ; and, as to the glory of God, 
surely his perfections, his moral government, and his revealed will, 
never will permit us to believe that it is promoted by injury to persons 
who are the objects of his care as a Creator, a Redeemer, and a 
Sanctifier. The glory of God, indeed, as we learn from history, has 
been the avowed justification of the-most flagrant enormities. For 
the glory of God, and the law given by him to Moses, the Jewish 
rabble, decoyed and goaded by the Jewish priesthood, dragged the 
blessed Jesus to the cross ; inflicted upon the meek and pious Stephen 
the most barbarous violence ; caused an execrable conspiracy of forty 
zealots to bind themselves by an oath, that they would neither eat nor 
rlrink till they had slain Paul ; subjected him to a long and comfort- 
less imprisonment at Home ; and brought upon the noble army of 
primitive martyrs all the miseries of dungeons, chains, tortures, and 
death. For the glory of God, Mahomet raised the standard, maddened 
his illiterate and sanguinary followers with the wildest frenzy in the 
defence of the Divine Unity, and spread around him the most hideous 
desolation. For the glory of God were undertaken those frantic 
crusades which for a long time agitated the Christian world, and have 
left behind them the most frightful traces of superstition, intolerance 
plunder, and bloodshed. For the glory of God, the bigot, as I tola 
you, whether a Romanist or Protestant, has consigned many a studious, 
virtuous, and devout Christian to the flames. The glory of God incited 
Anabaptists and other fanatics to trample upon the authority of laws, 
and to convulse well-founded and well-administered governments with 
all the tumults of sedition, and all the atrocities of carnage. Yet the 
bewildered imagination and infuriate passions of these self-appointed 
champions for the honor of their Maker, pushed them onward from 
one outrage to another, not merely without the strong reproach, but 
with the prompt, lively, and full approbation, of their perverted con- 
sciences. — Dr. Samuel Parr: Works, vol. v. pp. 119 and 472-4. 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL CONTRASTED. 37 

Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and 
yet all may retain the essentials of Christianity ; men may sometimes 
eagerly dispute, and yet not differ much from one another. The rigor- 
ous persecutors of error should therefore enlighten their zeal with 
knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity ; — that charity 
without which orthodoxy is vain ; charity that " thinketh no evil," but 
" hopeth all things " and " endureth all things." — Dr. Samuel 
Johnson : Life of Browne ; in Works, vol. ix. p. 298. 

It is greatly to be feared, that religious controversialists are often 
under the influence of pride, envy, and a contentious disposition, which 
they and their admirers mistake for the warm glow of a pure zeal. I 
am led to draw this unfavorable conclusion from the vehemence and 
acrimony of their language. The love of truth operates indeed, steadily 
and uniformly, but not violently. It is the love of victory and supe- 
riority which sharpens the style. The desire of literary fame, of 
becoming the patron or leader of a sect, of silencing the voice of oppo- 
sition, usually inspires that eagerness and warmth of temper which it is 
not natural that the truth or falsehood of any speculative opinion should 
excite. — Vicesimus Knox: Sermons ; in Works, vol. vi. p. 249. 

Religious charity requires that we should not judge any set of 
Christians by the representations of their enemies alone, without 

hearing and reading what they have to say in their own defence , 

Some men cannot understand how they are to be zealous, if they are 
candid, in religious matters. But remember that the Scriptures 
carefully distinguish between laudable zeal and indiscreet zeal. . . . The 
object is to be at the same time pious to God, and charitable to man ; 
to render your own faith as pure and perfect as possible, not only 
without hatred of those who differ from you, but with a constant 
recollection, that it is possible, in spite of thought and study, that you 
may have been mistaken ; that other sects may be right ; and that a 
zeal in his service, which God does not want, is a very bad excuse 
for those bad passions which his sacred word condemns. — Sydney 
Smith: Sermon on Christian Charity ; in Works, pp. 308, 310. 

We have a well-authenticated statement respecting an orthodox 
professor of Christianity, who declined to assist a neighbor's family 
involved in distress, on the ground of the heterodoxy of a member of 
that family. That tendency in our fallen nature which induces u^ 
to place reliance on a doctrinal creed or on a zealous temperament, to 
the neglect of humane sentiments and of a generous disposition, is the 
reason why the apostles so earnestly admonish their disciples on 

4 



38 TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL CONTRASTED, 

the subject. Nearly allied to this disposition, and perhaps a result 
of it, is candor in judgment, — a habit of putting a charitable con- 
struction upon the motives of our fellow-men ; the absence of bigotrj 
and exclusiveness ; a resolute determination to judge of books, of 
systems of knowledge, and of men, with discriminating kindness. No 
one ought to be considered as eminently pious, who is rash and 
overbearing in his moral or literary judgments. If his piety does not 
enter into and control these matters, it is one-sided and partial. . . . 
These illiberal judgments and uncourteous feelings are intimately 
connected with a narrow understanding and with confined intellectual 
opinions. The natural tendency of enlarged views, and of extensive 
and patient reading, is to break down the barriers of party, and of a 
6elfish bigotry, while it refines and ennobles the soul. — Bela ^ 
Edwards : Writings, vol. ii. pp. 479-80. 

True religion imparts to the mind all those ideas that are fitted 
most potently to stir the heart of man. ... It kindles and perpetually 
feeds that wise zeal which has a grasp, breadth, and elevation, of which 
mere sectarian selfishness is destitute, because not possessing the self- 
denying heroism and affection of which true greatness is always formed. 
. . . Christianity is not merely that indolent good nature which often 
steals the name of philanthropy, but the supernatural fire that flashed 
transforming ideas on the brain of Paul as he journeyed to Damascus, 
and poured still more celestial revelations on his heart ; rousing divine 
yearnings that bigotry had smothered, and unsealing that fountain of 
charity toward all which theological thorns tend so much to choke, 
and which partisan bitterness is sure to destroy. — E. L. Magoon : 
Republican Christianity, pp. 321-2. 

A schismatic spirit often insidiously puts on the disguise of com- 
mendable zeal for the glory of God. . . . When a vain and weak-minded 
Christian has been wrought upon either by flatterers or designing 
teachers or by his own warm distempered imagination, to suppose that 
he of all others is called upon to seek the glory of God, and punish 
his foes, he soon devises bold and decisive means for vindicating 
the supposed honor of God, and finds arguments for his employing the 
most cruel and unscriptural measures against heretics and blasphemers. 
... It was not a blood-thirsty cruelty that always kindled the fires of 
the Inquisition, but at times an intense desire to glorify God, by 
searching out his concealed foes, penetrating the arcana of their heart, 
and compelling them, by civil pains and penalties, to come back within 
the pale of the church j otherwise they were to be extirpated as here* 



TRUE AND FALSE ZEAL CONTRASTED 39 

tics, whom it was dangerous for religion to allow to live. The same 
fiery, sclnsmatical spirit passed, in a mitigated form, from the Itoman 
into the lleformed churches j for they also persecuted, and persecuted 
from a sincere desire to promote the glory of God. The amiable 
Bishop Hall wrote a treatise on Moderation, and, with all his ten- 
derness to sectaries, he lets out the symptoms of a deeply-seated 
schismatical spirit when he says, " Master Calvin did well approve 
himself to God's church, in bringing Servetus to the stake at Geneva." 
The good man knew not what spirit he was of. . . . It is an angelic at- 
tainment to have burning zeal, and yet zeal burning in love, to compass 
the whole world, not for proselytes, but for converts, and to respect 
every sincere inquirer after truth as an honest, conscientious professor. 
True zeal draws no other sword from its scabbard but the sword of the 
Spirit, which is the word of God. — Dr. Gavin Struthers : Party 
Spirit; in Essays on CJiristian Union, pp. 417-19. 

When, in the course of our reading, we meet with passages so finely 
conceived as these, so beautifully exhibiting the divine and gentle spirit 
of our Lord, and so admirably conducive to the harmony and peace of 
Christendom, without furnishing any grounds for indifference to the study, 
reception, and spread of gospel truth; and when we recall to mind the 
jealousies and the heart-burnings which so-called Christians have cherished 
within their hearts, and the wars and persecutions which they have waged 
against each other, on account of mere differences of opinion, — we have 
sometimes thought that the religious world would lose little of truth, and far 
le-s of love, if the creeds and confessions and systems of theology, which 
have encouraged feelings and acts so alien to all that is good and pure and 
peaceable, had, without the concurrence of man's embittered passions, been 
swept by the winds of heaven to the mouth of some great volcano, there to 
be engulfed, and perish for ever. But we remember our Master's words, 
and exclaim, in the spirit of his far-seeing counsel, — "Nay! lest, while we 
gather up the tares, we root up also the wheat with them." Let the follies 
and errors, and even the fulminations, of theologians remain unconsumed 
in the monumental piles which they have raised in their codes and books, 
lest, while they are being burnt, the wisdom, the piety, and the truths, weak 
and imperfect as they are, which have to some extent been incorporated 
with their opposites, perish also. Let them remain awhile, — but remain 
inactive in the production of further evil, till the great field of humanity be 
covered by the fruits of truth, righteousness, and love, — till the harvest 
of a liberal Christianity appear, when the tares of error, of bigotry, and of 
persecution will either have rotten away from the face of the earth, or been 
consumed by the flames of a Catholicism not assumed as a badge of dis- 
tinction by anyone church, but operating as a vital principle in all societies 
and communities bearing the name of the blessed Jesus. 



40 THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 



SECT. III. — NOT UNIFORMITY OF OPINION, BUT PIETY, MUTUAL FOR- 
BEARANCE AND AFFECTION, — LOVE TO GOD, CHRIST, AND MAN, — 
THE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 

Let them see 
That as more pure and gentle is your faith, 
Yourselves are gentler, purer. 

Robert Southet. 

Although a difference in opinions, or modes of worship, may prevent 
an entire external union, yet need it prevent our union in affection ? 
Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike ? May we not 
be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion ? It is certain, so 
long as we know but in part, that all men will not see all things alike. 
It is an unavoidable consequence of the present weakness and short- 
ness of the human understanding, that several men will be of severa* 
minds in religion as well as in common life. Nay, farther : although 
every man necessarily believes that every particular opinion which he 
holds is true, yet can no man be assured, that all his own opinions, 
taken together, are true. Nay, every thinking man is assured they 
are not ; seeing Humanum est errare et nescire, to be ignorant of many 
things, and to be mistaken in some, is the necessary condition of 
humanity. Every wise man, therefore, will allow others the same 
liberty of thinking, which he desires they should allow him ; and will 
no more insist on their embracing his opinions, than he would have 
them to insist on his embracing theirs. He bears with those who 
differ from him, and only asks him with whom he desires to unite in 
love that single question, " Is thine heart right, as my heart is with 
thy heart ? " No man can choose for, or prescribe to, another. But 
every man must follow the dictates of his own conscience, in simplicity 
and godly sincerity. He must be fully persuaded in his own mind, and 
then act according to the best light he has. Nor has any creature 
power to constrain another to walk by his own rule. God has given 
no right to any of the children of men thus to lord it over the con- 
sciences of his brethren ; but every man must judge for himself, as 
every man must give an account of himself to God. I dare not 
presume to impose my mode of worship on any other. I believe it is 
truly primitive and apostolical ; but my belief is no rule for another. 
I ask not, therefore, of him with whom I would unite in love, " Are 
you of my church ? — of my congregation ? Do you receive the 



THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 41 

same form of church government ? Do you join in the same form 
of prayer wherein I worship God ? " My only question at present is 
this, " Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart ? " Is thy 
heart right with God ? Dost thou believe in the Lord Jesus Christ ? 
Is thy faith filled with the energy of love ? Art thou employed in 
doing " not thy own will, but the will of Him that sent thee " ? Is 
thy heart right towards thy neighbor ? Do you show your love by 

your works ? If it be, " give me thine hand." A catholic 

spirit is not an indifference to all opinions, nor an indifference as to 
public worship, nor an indifference to all congregations. Catholic 
love is a catholic spirit. But, if we take this word in its strictest 
sense, a man of a catholic spirit is one who gives his hand to all whose 
hearts are right with his heart ; one who loves his friends as brethren 
in the Lord, as members of Christ, and children of God ; as joint 
partakers now of the present kingdom of God, and fellow-heirs of his 
eternal kingdom ; all of whatever opinion, or worship, or congregation, 
who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ ; who love God and man ; who, 
rejoicing to please, and fearing to offend God, are careful to abstain from 
evil," and are zealous of good works. He is the man of a truly catho- 
lic spirit who bears all these continually upon his heart — Abridged 
from John Wesley : Works, voL i. pp. 347-54. 

The preceding extract consists of a few sentences culled from Wesley's 
Sermon on a " Catholic Spirit," which, though unambitious in its style and 
objectionable in one or two of its ideas, will perhaps bear comparison with 
any thing of the kind ever published. Would that this discourse, contain- 
ing more of the principles of true religion than can be found in many a 
professed work on divinity, were scattered in every Christian home ; read 
and digested by every man, woman, and child; and exemplified in every 
thought and word and deed ! 

Away with names, and the petty distinctions of religious party ! 
Are you a Christian, or wish to be one, in deed, not in word only ; 
for the sake of spiritual, not temporal purposes ? Then drop your 
prejudices, and seek the spirit of Christianity, not in systems, but 
in the written gospel, assisted by prayer, and the pious illustrations 
of men sincere and good, however they may have been reviled or 
neglected through prejudice, political artifice, or mistaken zeal. When 
you have thus found the truth, show its influence by your charity. Be 
united to all Christians, as well as to Christ ; and beware of making 
distinctions by nicknames, and thus exciting envy, wrath, and malice, 
which are of a nature opposite to the fruits of the Spirit, — love, joy, 

4* 



42 THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 

and peace. Good men should join in a firm phalanx, that the evl 
may not triumph in their divisions. Let all who are united under the 
banners of Christ hail one another as brother Christians, though they 
may differ on the subject of church discipline, rites, ceremonies, or 
even non-essential doctrine. . . . Let us consider how the hard-hearted, 
unconverted, depraved, and worthless part of mankind exult, while 
Christians, agreeing in essentials, quarrel and revile each other, not on 
the substance of religion, but on the mere shades of difference in 
opinion in matters of indifference. . . . Are you a sincere believer, — a 
lover of God and man ? I salute you from my heart as my brother 
in Christ, whether, in consequence of your birth and education, you 
formed the creed you utter at Rome, at Geneva, or in your closet at 
home. — Vicesimus Knox : Christian Philosophy ; in Works, vol. vii. 
pp. 289-90. 

A more extensive diffusion of piety among all sects and parties 
will be the best and only preparation for a cordial union. Christians wiii 
then be disposed to appreciate their differences more equitably ; to 
turn their chief attention to points on which they agree ; and, in conse- 
quence of loving each other more, to make every concession consistent 
with a good conscience. Instead of wishing to vanquish others, every 
one will be desirous of being vanquished by the truth. ... In the 
room of being lepelled by mutual antipathy, they will be insensibly 
drawn nearer to each other by the ties of mutual attachment. A 
larger measure of the spirit of Christ would prevent them from con- 
verting every incidental variation into an impassable boundary, or 
from condemning the most innocent and laudable usages for fear of 
symbolizing with another class of Christians. . . . The general preva- 
lence of piety in different communities would inspire that mutual 
respect, that heartfelt homage, for the virtues conspicuous in the 
character of their respective members, which would urge us to ask 
with astonishment and regret, Why cannot we be one ? What is it 
that obstructs our union ? Instead of maintaining the barrier which 
separates us from each other, and emj^loying ourselves in fortifying the 
frontiers of hostile communities, we should be anxiously devising 
the means of narrowing the grounds of dispute, by drawing the atten- 
tion of all parties to those fundamental and catholic principles in 
which they concur. — Robert Hall : Review of Zeal without Inno- 
vation ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 266. 

Truth and virtue we do not hold to be chartered to companies : 
they are possessed only in part by th r>se who possess the most of them j 






THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 43 

and they are possessed in some good measure even by many who must 

yet stand condemned as capitally wrong in theology It is 

trite to say, that, while the human mind continues what it is, men 
must differ, not merely in taste and intellectual preferences, but even 
in some of those matters of belief which should be under the control 
of mere reason. The supposition of an age of uniformity is therefore 
chimerical ; but the supposition — nay the positive hope — of an age 
of Christian concord and of cordial combination is not chimerical; 
for it is identical with the belief of the truth of Christianity itself, and 

of its triumph in the world Ought not those to look well to 

the course they are pursuing, who, on the plea of a conscientious 
regard to some special enactment, or of the adherence to some insti- 
tution which, at the most, is but the means to an end, are, and in a 
deliberate manner, putting contempt upon Christ's first law, — his 
universal and sovereign will ; and on such ground are either refusing 
to recognize and to consort with other Christians, or are even denying 
the very name to those whose only alleged fault is their error, if it be 
an error, on the particular in question ? — Isaac Taylor : Lectures on 
Spiritual Christianity, pp. 159, 162, 179. 

Let a man, no matter what his sectarian distinctions and natural 
or social disadvantages, or what his discrepancies in the minor views 
and practices of religion, give but evidence of love to Christ and to 
his word, and holiness, and he is my brother. Be he Armmian or 
Calvinist, Episcopalian or Congregationalist, — let him be Baptist 
or Pedobaptist, — let him have all worldly disadvantages of education 
and station and taste, — be he Greek or Barbarian, bond or free, — 
if I love Christ, I love that disciple of Christ. . . . Under every variety 
of costume and dispensation and dialect and race, the tenant of a 
Caffre kraal or of the Greenlander's snow-hut, — nay, let him mutter 
this prayer as his Pater Noster in an unknown tongue ; if I find, under 
all his superstition and disguises of hereditary prejudice and error, 
the love of my Christ and the likeness of my Lord, can 1 — dare I 
disavow the brotherhood ? — "William B. Williams : Lectures on the 
Lord's Prayer, pp. 12, 13. 

Intolerance among Christians of reasonable diversities of Christian 
faith has been one of the greatest errors of modern times, and has 
brought infinite reproach on the Protestant cause. It greatly impeded 
the progress of the Beformation at first, and has hindered both its 
completion and general prevalence since. While pretending the 
greatest zeal for the honor of God and the purity of religion, it i* 



44 THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 

itself the greatest corruption. It betrays the cause of God with a 
kiss, and stabs it to the heart, with professions of love on its lips. It 
is amazing that the world has been so long in getting its eyes open to 
the enormous wickedness )f this procedure. But a brighter day is 
breaking, not only with respect to the accuracy and extent of Christian 
knowledge, but also with respect to a reasonable indulgence of the 
ignorant, the weak and erring. Uniformity in faith, and equality in 
superior knowledge and discernment, are very desirable indeed ; but 
Christian charity and mercy are far greater and better. With all the 
importance of Christianity as an institute of knowledge, it has a 
transcendently greater importance as an institute of love and general 
holiness. — Leicester A. Sawyer: Organic Chiistianity, p. 413. 

The Scripture plan of unity and concord cannot be based on abso- 
lute uniformity of opinion and- practice. This is the basis on which the 
church of Home maintains her pretended unity, — a basis which may 
perhaps be consistently assumed by a church claiming infallibility, and 
denying the right of private judgment. It is a basis which may seem 
to be countenanced by some expressions in Scripture, if we attend to 
the sound rather than the sense of them. It has often been attempted 
to be acted on. It was the favorite scheme, the idol, of the framers 
of the Solemn League and Covenant, about the middle of the sixteenth 
century; and it is a scheme to which, even in recent times, some 
excellent persons have clung with fond affection or obstinate perti- 
nacity. . . . The slightest knowledge of the constitution of human 
nature, and the slightest attention to the history of the human race, 
may convince us that it is a scheme utterly hopeless and chimerical. . . . 
On all other subjects on which they think at all, men entertain differ- 
ent opinions. But there is no subject so likely to occasion a variety 
of sentiment as religion; for, though its fundamental doctrines are 
comparatively few and abundantly obvious, there is no subject which 
presents in its subordinate details such a multiplicity of intricate and 
difficult questions, none that has been so much perplexed by con- 
troversy, none more likely to awaken prejudice and passion, and none 
for the investigation of which the human faculties labor under a 
stronger indisposition or inaptitude. . . . Even in the purest and 
happiest ages of the church, the friends of religion have not been 
entirely of one mind ; and, if at_times there has been something like 
an approximation towards complete uniformity, it has probably been 
when the spirit of free inquiry has been extinguished, when the 
faculties of the human mind were in a state of utter torpor. . . . What 



THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 4.5 

is the Scrip ture plan for maintaining the unity of the Saviour's mystical 
body ? To that plan we are already in some measure " shut up," by 
finding all others to be either unwarrantable or impracticable. Of 
that plan, the characteristic feature is forbearance ; and the essence 
of it may be expressed in a single sentence. All true Christians ought 
to walk together in all things in which they are agreed ; and as the 
points on which they differ, though some of them may be very import- 
ant, cannot be essential to salvation, they ought to make these points 
matters of forbearance. — Dr. Robert Balmer : The Scripture Prin- 
ciples of Unity ; in Essays on Christian Union, pp. 35-37. 

Notwithstanding these sensible remarks, Dr. Balmer condemns, as " lax 
and latitudinarian," the principle maintained by John Locke, that all who 
admit the divine origin of Christianity should be received into the Christian 
church. 

Men have tried all kinds of methods, except the only right, effec- 
tual, and divinely appointed one, for gathering into union the broken 
and scattered fragments of the church, and for tuning to harmony its 
discordant voices. They have tried the compulsion of law, the power 
of logic, the persuasion of eloquence, the subscription of articles, the 
application of tests, the authority of tradition; and yet all these 
means have signally failed, not only to procure internal unity, but 
external uniformity. . . . And yet there, upon the very surface of reve- 
lation, where every eye can see it, lies, and has lain for nearly eighteen 
centuries, a principle so simple that a child may understand it, which, 
if properly felt and judiciously applied, would have effected that 
which has ever been considered so necessary, and yet so difficult, — 
" Forbearing one another in love." Divinely inspired, heaven- 
descended, godlike sentence ! How simple, yet how sublime ! ... If 
there be one practical precept which we could wish to be printed in 
starry characters on the dark page of the nightly sky, written in sun- 
beams on the tablet of the earth, and uttered both night and day in 
voices from the heavens, that the attention of men might be irresistibly 
turned to it, and their hearts unavoidably impressed by it, this is the 
injunction ; and yet what greater clearness, or more importance, or 
higher authority* would this splendid method of publication give to 
it, beyond what it already possesses as a portion of Holy Writ ? 
" Forbearing one another in love." This one short precept, 
universally obeyed, would set all right, and reduce all to order. It 
would not at once reconcile all minds, but it would liarmonize all 



46 THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 

hearts. It would not amalgamate all churches into an external uni* 
formity ; but it would combine them all in the unity of the Spirit and 
the bond of peace. It might not hush the voice of controversy ; but it 
would take from it the harsh dissonance of human passion, and cause 
it to speak in the mellifluous tones of divine charity. — John Angell 
James : Union in relation to the Religious Parties of England ; in 
Essays on Christian Union, pp. 218-19. 

Toleration ! I hate the word. It implies a power or a right which 
nowhere has existence ; and the man who tolerates, under the imagi- 
nation that he possesses any such right, is only second in presumption 
to him who uses the imaginary right in actual intolerance and persecu- 
tion. No man has the right either to tolerate or not to tolerate 
another, in aught whatever which he may conscientiously think or say 
or do in regard to what lies between him and his God, — his religion. 

You are perfectly conscious, you tell me, that you are sincere 

and upright in your desire to know the mind of Christ, and in your 
inquiries after it ; and therefore you must regard the conclusions to 
which another has come that are different from yours, as arising from 
the biasing influence of some predisposition against the truth. Well : 
suppose the other declares himself to have the very same conscious- 
ness of integrity, must not he think the same of the conclusions to 
which you have come? Suppose it admitted that there can be no 
such thing as perfectly innocent error. Is it safe — nay, is it consist- 
ent with the self-diffidence and humility of the Christian character — 
to assume our own infallibility ; not our own exclusive conscientious- 
ness merely, but the absolute impossibility of the error lying with us ; 
as if we, of all Christians on earth, were altogether beyond the reach 
of any perverting or biasing influence ? Dojiot becoming distrust of 
ourselves, and becoming charity for others, unite in recommending a 
different principle on which to regulate our feelings and our conduct 
towards our fellow-Christians ? Is there no allowance to be made for 
the varieties, great as they are, even in mental perspicacity and vigor, 
and none for the power of early habits and associations, where the 
sincerity of the desire to know and to follow the mind of Christ may 
be equal ? . . . This is the evil, — your forgetting that you hold no 
position towards others which they have not the same title to assume 
towards you. If, indeed, perfect unanimity is to be assumed as the 
only admissible basis of Christian communion, "where are the two 
individuals to be found, who, if they continued to exercise freedom of 
thought, and, in doing so, did not take special care to tie their tongues, 






THE TRUE BASES OF CHRISTIAN UNION. 47 

and keep their thoughts to themselves, could long maintain consistent 
feJowship ?".... When we see a fellow-Christian in earnest in Ins 
inquiries after Iris Master's will, — searching the Scriptures, seeking 
divine direction, discovering an evident desire to know what is right, 
and to the extent of his knowledge faithfully doing it, — we are then 
warranted, nay, more than warranted, we are bound to conclude, that 
the same conscientiousness has also, and equally, been in exercise in 
regard to those points on which he has arrived at different conclusions* 
from our own. We may marvel at those conclusions, — marvel greatly 
at his not seeing what to us appears so clear. But we must not forget, 
that his right to wonder is the same as ours. The effect on both 
sides ought to be, instead of proud and indignant despite of each 
other's judgments, the exercise of self-diffident humble-mindedness, 
and the cultivation of reciprocal charity. — Dr. Ralph Wardlaw : 
A Catholic Spirit; in Essays on Christian Union, pp. 316, 332-5. 

It is painful to think, that, amid sentiments breathing so just and divine 
a spirit, and so happily fitted to promote good- will and union among all who 
acknowledge one and the same Lord and Master, this celebrated writer 
should have felt obliged, by his views of Christian doctrine, to say, p. 317, 
that " from the pale of the Christianity within which the spirit of catholic 
love is to be cherished, those must, of necessity, be excluded who hold and 
avow the principles of Socinianism ; " that is, such persons as are im- 
properly called by this name, namely, believers in one only God the Father, 
and in his Son and Servant, the man Christ Jesus. The Essay from which 
we have taken the above extract is one of eight, severally penned by 
Chalmers, Balmer, Candlish, John Angell James, David King, 
Wardlaw, Struthers, and Symington, — divines all more or less noted 
both in their own land and in the United States. These Essays, written in 
1844 at the suggestion of a friend to Christian union, abound in good common 
sense, united with an earnest piety, and a feeling of intense desire for the 
prevalence of kinder dispositions and more liberal modes of operation than 
at present exist in "evangelical" or orthodox churches; but we regret to 
say, that the charity which they exhibit, catholic as it assumes to be, is so 
narrow as to exclude those " worshippers of the Father," through the 
mediation of the Son and the influences of the Spirit, in whose society 
have been enrolled the names of Carpenter and Channing, of Ware and 
of Norton, — gifted and good men, who, if they were not acknowledged on 
earth as co-workers with a Chalmers, a Balmer, and a Wardlaw in the 
same great cause, — that of a common Christianity, — are, we trust, recog- 
nized in heaven by them as fellow-saints and fellow-disciples, now that 
they have each left the scene of their earthly labors, and gone to another 
and a holier s] here of God's universe, where the differences that separated 
them here from each other are probably all unknown. 



48 CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE. 



SECT. IV. — THE DUTY OF HOLDING INTERCOURSE AND COMMUNION 
WITH CHRISTIANS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS, AND OF LOVING ALL 
MANKIND. 

Oh, might we all our lineage prove, 
Give and forgive, do good and love, 
By soft endearments in kind strife 
Lightening the load of daily life ! 

Let church union and communion be laid upon none but catholic 
terms, which are possible and fit for all to be agreed in. Common 
reason will tell any impartial man, that there can be no more effectual 
engine to divide the churches, and raise contentions and persecutions, 
than to make laws for church communion, requiring such conditions 
as it is certain the members cannot consent to. ... If ever the churches 
agree, and Christians be reconciled, it must be by leaving out all 
dividing impositions, and requiring nothing as necessary to commu- 
munion, which all may not rationally be expected to consent in. — 
Richard Baxter : Practical Works, vol. vi. pp. 186-7. 

Baxter did not regard differences of opinion on various doctrinal 
questions, or respecting church government, of much importance, 
while he could regard the parties as real Christians, and disposed to 
live in peace with others. To these two points he considered all other 
things subordinate. Christian fellowship, with him, was not the 
fellowship of Calvinists or Arminians, of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, 
Independents, or Baptists : it was the fellowship of Christians, holding 
the one faith and hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, in unity of spirit, 
and righteousness of life. This is the only catholic communion which 
is worth contending for; and which, it cannot be doubted, will, in 

due time, absorb all other party distinctions and disputes His 

[Baxter's] catholic principle of fellowship with all genuine Christians 
is better understood than it was ; though even yet, alas ! but partially 
adopted as a principle, and still more imperfectly exemplified in prac- 
tice. It implies not indifference to truth, but devoted attachment to 
it. It involves union without compromise, and co-operation without 
sacrifice of consistency. It recognizes the exclusive claims of divine 
authority in religion, and the unquestionable rights of conscience; 
securing for each individual the power of acting according to his own 
convictions, while it requires him to concede no less to others. It 
will ultimately effect what acts of uniformity have hitherto failed to 



CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE. 49 

produce, and which will never be brought about either by compulsory 
measures of state, or stormy controversies in the church. A greater 
portion of the spirit of Christ, and a brighter manifestation of his holy 
image, will do more to unite all his disciples, than the most perfect 
theory of church government that has yet been recommended, or 
forced on the world. When this blessed period of love and union 
shall arrive, the services of Baxter, as the indefatigable advocate of 
catholic communion, will not be forgotten. — William Orme, in his 
edition of Baxter's Practical Works, vol. i. pp. 584, 613. 

The preceding abstract of Richard Baxter's sentiments on Christian 
liberty and communion is supported by innumerable passages in the writings 
of that noble-minded Puritan. In p. 574 of the same volume, Orme, who 
seems to have caught the true spirit of his hero, makes on this subject 
other observations, which are deserving of perusal. 

I have always found, that, when men of sense and virtue mingle in 
free conversation, the harsh and confused suspicions which they may 
have entertained of each other gradually give w T ay to more just and 
more candid sentiments. In reality, the example of many great and 
good men averts every imputation of impropriety from such inter- 
course ; and the information which I have myself occasionally gained 
by conversing with learned teachers of many different sects will always 
make me remember with satisfaction, and acknowledge with thankful- 
ness, the favor which they have done to me by their unreserved and 
judicious communications. ... In truth, men of improved understand- 
ings and rooted virtue do not suffer difference of opinion to give them 
unfavorable impressions of each other Will the reviewer sus- 
pect me of any predilection for infidelity and disloyalty, . . . because 
in the exoteric and esoteric doctrines of the English church I have 
met with no rule by which I am pledged to entertain any hatred what- 
soever to Dissenters, whether Protestant or Catholic ; because, " as 
much as lieth in me, I would live," and exhort others to live, " peace- 
ably with " the Lutheran, Greek, Roman, and Genevan churches, and 
all other Christian societies; or, finally, because with the light of 
natural religion, and in the spirit of revealed, I think it my duty to be 
" kindly affectinned towards all Jews, Turks, infidels," schismatics, 
" and heretics," as belonging to " one " great " fold under " the care 
of " one " good *■ Shepherd " ? How does the sacred and indispensa- 
ble duty of doing good, especially unto those of the household of 
u faith," absolve me from the obligation to do good, if it be possible, 
to all other men ? Are they not endowed, like myself, with rational 

5 



50 CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE 

faculties, capable of physical happiness and social union ; and placed, 
or at least believed by me to be placed, in a state of discipline, as 
subjects of reward or punishment in a life to come? Why, then, 
should I " judge them," or " set them at nought; " or, by my intole- 
rance, " throw stumbling-blocks in their way" to the adoption of that 
religion which I have embraced as true P — Dr. Samuel Parr: Worlcs, 
vol. iii. pp. 275-0; and vol. iv. pp. 509-19. 

The practice of incorporating private opinions and human inventions 
with the constitution of a church, and with the terms of communion, 
has Long appeared to him [the writer] untenable in its principle, and 
pernicious in its effects. There is no position in the whole compass 
of theology, of the truth of which he feels a stronger persuasion, than 
that no man or set of men are entitled to prescribe, as an indispensable 
condition of communion, what the New Testament has not enjoined 

as a condition of salvation It [the Lord's Supper] is appointed 

to be a memorial of the greatest instance of love that was ever exhi- 
bited, as well as the principal pledge of Christian fraternity. It must 
appear surprising that the rite which of all others is most adapted to 
cement mutual attachment, and which is in a great measure appointed 
for that purpose, should be fixed upon as the line of demarcation, the 
impassable barrier, to separate and disjoin the followers of Christ. . . . 
According to this notion of it, it is no longer a symbol of our common 
Christianity : it is the badge and criterion of a party, a mark of discri- 
mination applied to distinguish the nicer shades of difference among 
Christians. — ROBERT HALL: Preface and Introductory Remarks to 
Terms of Communion ; in JVorics, vol. i. pp. 285, 291. 

What I, above all other things, wish to see is a close union between 
Christian reformers and those who are often, as I think, falsely charged 
with being enemies of Christianity. It is a part of the perfection of 
the gospel, that it is attractive to all those who love truth and good- 
ness, as soon as it is known in its true nature, whilst it tends to clear 
away those erroneous views and evil passions with which philanthropy 
and philosophy, so long as they stand aloof from it, are ever in some 
degree corrupted. My feeling towards men whom I believe to be 
sincere lovers of truth and the happiness of their fellow-creatures, 
while they seek these (aids otherwise than through the medium of the 
gospel, is rather that they are not far from the kingdom of God, and 
might be brought into it altogether, than that they are enemies whose 
views are directly opposed to our own. — Dr. TlIOMAS ARNOLD! 
Letter 26; in Life and Correspondence, pp. 72-3. 



CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE. 51 

It was a sad defect of the Reformation, and a disastrous error 
of the reformers, that, with all their sublime conceptions of Christian 
liberty, as they maintained it against Papal intolerance and oppression, 
they did not understand the wide extent to which it ought to be 
maintained against themselves and against one another. Having 
abolished the despotism of the Papacy, they did not clearly see that 
the church only wanted the lordship of Christ. They thought they 
must settle terms of communion, and rules of faith, which Christ and 
the apostles had not settled. The great law of church fellowship 
and communion is contained in Rom. xiv. 1, " Him that is weak in the 
faith receive, but not to doubtful disputations." Christ received all 
that came. We hear of no applicants for church privileges being 
rejected by the apostles. . . . The gospel is an institute of faith and 
knowledge, but it is still more an institute of love and holiness. . . . 
With an open Bible in hand, and the laws of love and liberty on our 
lips, and the rights and obligations of independent private judgment 
on the forefront of all our religious movements, how can we set up 
bars and gates to shut out of our own particular enclosures of the 
church of Christ, the weak and ignorant, and erring in faith, whom, 
nevertheless, God accepts, and with whom the Holy Spirit deigns to 
dwell ? How can we be guilty of such arrogance and inconsistency ? 
How can we allow ourselves thus to sin against our weak brethren, 
ind put stumbling-blocks both in their way and in the way of sinners ? 
How can we so belie our professions, and dishonor our Master, whose 
living and dying charge it was, that we should love one another as he 
loved us ; and whose prayer it was, in the immediate view of his cru- 
cifixion, that we may all be one, even as he and the Father are one ; 

that we may be me in them ? John xvii. 21 When Unita- 

rianism arose, it was made a question, both in Europe and America, 
whether it should be tolerated as an allowable diversity of opinion, or 
expose its subjects to separation and excommunication. The subject 
of the precise character and relations of Christ had been, long debated 
in the ancient church, and had been the occasion of sanguinary wars 
and persecutions. . . . Under these circumstances, it is not strange that 
it was a matter of regret with many, that the controversy concerning 
the character of Christ should be revived in modern times, and that 
there was a general disposition to prohibit dissent on this subject in 
most Protestant churches. . . . The Presbyterian churches in England, 
Switzerland, and France, adopted the same principle of toleration as the 
church of England ; and Unitarianism gained the ascendancy among 



52 CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE. 

them. The Presbyterian churches of the United States adopted the 
opposite prohibition policy. The Congregational churches of New 
England were at first tolerant of Unitarian views, till, considerable 
defections having occurred, the subject came up, in 1816, for general 
discussion, when this toleration was abandoned, and the opposite policy 
adopted. This was a revolution in the policy of Congregationalism, 
against which many protested at the time, and concerning which some 
are doubtful still. Since this time, the Supreme Divinity of Christ has 
not only been generally held by Congregationalists, as it is by church 
of Englandists and Episcopalians, but has been insisted upon as neces- 
sary to membership in the church. The correctness of this, either in 
respect to principle or policy, admits of being seriously questioned. — 
Leicester A. Sawyer : Organic Christianity, pp. 405-8. 

This testimony on behalf of the most enlarged views of Christian com 
munion is extremely valuable and instructive ; proceeding, as it does, from 
the pen of one who regards "the denial of the Divinity of Christ," his 
essential Divinity, as " undoubtedly a great error;" and on whom therefore 
cannot rest any suspicion of his being favorable to Unitarianism. Though 
assured that " the toleration of error seldom prejudices the truth," he 
acknowledges, as an honest man and a candid historian, that, by admitting 
the principle of toleration, the English, Swiss, and French Presbyterian 
churches became, on the whole, Unitarian; and that, by adopting an oppo- 
site policy, — that of exclusion from the membership of their church, — the 
Congregationalists have, in general, remained Trinitarian ; — admissions 
which seem to imply that the tendency of religious freedom and Christian 
charity, modelled on the usages and the spirit of apostolic times, is to pro- 
duce a state of things leading to the reception of Unitarian doctrine. 

Schismatics, stickling for church purity, and laying down laws to 
promote it, which have not been laid down by Christ, have, like others 
who have pretended to be wiser than God, done grievous injury to 
the purity of church communion. They have, unwittingly, laid a 
snare for their own deception. In prescribing terms of communion 
which are not to be found in the Bible, they have flattered their own 
vanity, and are in the greatest danger of preferring their own sectarian 
features to the broad outlines of Christian character laid down in the 
word of God. Party men are in the utmost jeopardy of extending a 
culpable degree of charity to party men. Chiming in with their 
peculiarities is ajjt to cover a multitude of sins. Hence it is, that a 
strict-communion church has the gross inconsistency connected with it 
of having excluded from its pale the most excellent ones of the earth, 
whilst it has taken in those of its own denomination, who, in a spirit 



CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE. 53 

of candor, are little better than Samaritans. Truly, the practice is 
revolting, which is followed in many sectarian churches, of excommu- 
nicating, at every dispensation of the Lord's Supper, every Christian 
save those of their own section. Men such as Leighton and Owen 
and Fuller are cast out without any compunction, because they agree 
not with them in church order or government ; and yet party men, of 
very suspicious character, find admission. Alas ! sectarianism too often 
takes the bad, and casts the good away. It fills the Lord's table with 
nominal Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, or Cove- 
nanters, rather than with real Christians, bearing all these designations. 
Were Christ on earth, would he not say to all such churches, " By 
what authority did you refuse to hold communion with my servants ? 
and who gave you that authority ? " — Dr. Gavin Struthers : Party 
Spirit ; in Essays on Christian Union, pp. 423-4. 

Wherever the catholic spirit exists in its genuine character and 
legitimate amplitude and strength, it will display itself in admitting 
and courting the society of fellow-believers, without distinction of 
outward denomination; the intercourse of personal companionship 
and friendship, and fireside association, along with the exercises of 
Christian converse and social communion with God ; and the inter- 
course, too, still private, though somewhat more enlarged, of those 
spiritual coteries, to which our forefathers gave the appropriate desig- 
nation of fellowship-meetings. It will display itself still further in 
combination for purposes of Christian benevolence, and in co-operation 
for promoting their accomplishment, in every accessible way that does 
not trench upon conscientiousness, or demand any sacrifice of principle. 
And can any satisfactory reason be assigned why it should not display 
itself in the more extended " communion of saints," as exemplified 
in the more public ordinances of divine appointment and Christian 
celebration ; and, above all, in the simple but delightful feast of love, — 
the Lord's Supper ? In what capacity is it that we take our places 
there ? Is it as fellow-presbyterians, or fellow-congregationalists, or 
fellow-baptists, or fePow-pedobaptists ? Is it not rather as fellow- 
believers, fellow-disciples, fellow-christians ? If a Presbyterian and 
a Congregationalist, or a Baptist and a Pedobaptist, object to sitting 
down with each other at the table of the Lord, one of two inferences 
must follow: either they must, on account of their difference of 
sentiment as to the government or rites of the church, question 
each other's Christianity; or it must be, not as believers, disciples, 
Christians, but as Presbyterians or Congregationalists, Baptists or 

5* 



54 CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE. 

Pedobaptists, that they respectively consider themselves as entitled 
to a seat at the feast. And is there any one bearing the name of 
Jesus, now to be found, who holds and will defend so antiscriptural 
and narrow-minded a position ? Let it be remembered, reader, it is 
not our table, — it is the Lord's table ; and shall we, then, considel 
ourselves as entitled to shut the door of admission to it against any 
whom, there is every reason to believe, the divine Master of the feast 
would himself receive ? Is there no presumption in this ? It is not 
a Presbyterian table, or an Independent table : it is a Christian table. 
And ought not all, then, who are " of one heart and one soul " in 
regard to the essential articles of evangelical truth, and who give 
evidence of their attachment to these blessed truths by " a conversation 
as it becometh the gospel of Christ," to welcome one another to a joint 
participation of the symbols of the same broken body and the same 
shed blood, which are the objects of their common faith, the ground 
of their common hope, the charter of their common freedom, and the 
spring of their common holiness and their common joy ? ... If I see 
a fellow-believer who happens to be a Presbyterian manifesting in his 
life a larger amount of the exalted moral excellences and the lovely 
beauties of the Christian character than another fellow-believer who 
is an Independent, I must, if my sentiments and feelings are in any 
thing like harmony with the dictates of the word of God, experience 
a correspondingly larger amount of the love of complacency towards 
the one than towards the other. The character must stand higher 
in my estimation, and He closer to my heart. And of what kind, 
then, must that principle be, — how am I to characterize, how am I to 
designate it, — according to which I am to be precluded from giving a 
place beside me at the Christian feast to the more worthy, while I am 
bound to give it to the less worthy, of my brotherly affection ? — bound 
to receive him who is less a Christian because he is an Independent, 
and bound to exclude him who is more a Christian because he is a 
Presbyterian ! — Dr. Ralph Wardlaw : A Catholic Spirit ; in 
Essays on Christian Union, pp. 338-40. 

Of a character similar to those quoted from Drs. Wardlaw and Struthers 
are the sentiments of Dr. Balmer on the same subject, and in the same 
work, pp. 52-76 ; but, excellent as they are alike in spirit and in style, they 
would occupy too much room if inserted here, and a short extract would 
not do them justice. 

Few Trinitarians of the present day imagine that the Twelve who 
accompanied Jesus during his ministry on earth, — who walked and drank 



CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND UNIVERSAL LOVE. 65 

and ate with him, — who heard him utter his message of mercy in the 
name of his God and Father, and address the same great Being in the lan- 
guage of praise and supplication, — and who, though they loved and 
revered him with the simplicity and tenderness of little children, sometimes 
forgot their own inferiority; some of them speaking to him in terms of 
familiarity, some rebuking him, others contending in his presence for earthly 
power, one of them denying and another betraying him, and all at last 
forsaking him ; — few Trinitarians, we say, are now disposed to think that 
the apostles, who never, during the time of their personal intercourse with 
their Lord, had any conception of the spiritual nature of his office, had, or 
could have, the faintest idea of his being the unchangeable and ever-blessed 
God. To these men, however, who, like the Unitarians of modern times, 
believed, not that their Master was Almighty God, but merely his great 
Messenger and Anointed One, but whose views of his kingdom were con- 
fessedly much inferior to theirs, did Jesus address the words, " By this shall 
all men know that ye" — who fully believe in my divine mission — "are 
my disciples, if ye have love one to another." 

To this fact, and to the just inference to be drawn from Christ's beautiful 
and comprehensive precept, some of the good men * from whom we have 
quoted do not seem to have adverted. With much kindness and liberality 
of feeling, but with a proper indignation against the conduct of such secta- 
ries as would debar from Christian communion persons of a high moral and 
religious character, because, though adopting their general conceptions of the 
Trinity and the Atonement, they differ from them as to church government 
and forms, these writers stop short in the application of their great principle, 
and unhesitatingly refuse to hold communion with a " Socinian" or Unita- 
rian daughter of Christ's church, who — though, like her reputedly orthodox 
skters, she may have failed to do all that might have been justly expected — 
has yet been in some degree distinguished for her works of love and bene 
volence, for her devotion to the principles of religious freedom, and for hex 
defences of our common Christianity against the attacks of unbelievers ; 
and who, while she claims for her own the philanthropic Firmin, the noble- 
minded Milton, the godlike Newton, the pious Lardner, and the frank and 
fearless Priestley, would associate their names, not merely with a section 
of the church, but with the church itself and with general humanity, and 
would, in a spirit of catholic love, invite to her communion, without one 
question as to the peculiarities of their creed, all who profess, and desire to 
practise, the religion of the once-despised but now-exalted Christ. 



* Even the truly excellent and high-minded Baxter says that a " church fallen 
to Arianism is unmeet for Christian communion and to be owned as a church of 
Christ ; " and that, when the Arian or Socinian " venteth his heresy, he may be by 
the magistrate punished for his crime, and by the churches be branded as none 
of their communion." (See Practical Works, vol. v. pp. 443-4; and vol. xv. p. 442.) 
But living, as Baxter did, in an age of rampant bigotry, it is not surprising that ha 
could not wholly escape from the deleterious influences of sectarianism. 



56 THE NATURE AND EVILS OP INTOLERANCE. 



8ECT. V. — THE NATURE AND EVILS OF AN INTOLERANT OR A 
PERSECUTING SPIRIT. 

I always thought 
It was both impious and unnatural 
That such humanity and bloody strife 
Should reign among professors of one faith. 

Shakspeare. 

How much is the face of religion altered from what it was in the 
days of the apostles ! The ancient simplicity of doctrine is turned 
into abundance of new or private opinions, introduced as necessary 
articles of religion ; and, alas ! how many of them false ! So that 
Christians, being too proud to accept of the ancient test of Christianity, 
cannot now agree among themselves what a Christian is, and who is to 
be esteemed a Christian j and so they deny one another to be Christians, 
and destroy their charity to each other, and divide the church, and make 

themselves a scorn, by their divisions, to the infidel world Take 

heed of engaging yourselves in a sect or faction. For, when once you 
depart from catholic charity, there groweth up, instead of it, a partial 
respect to the interest of that sect to which you join ; and you will think 
that whatsoever doth promote that sect doth promote Christianity, and 
whatever is against that sect is against the church or cause of God. 
A narrow, sectarian, separating mind will make all the truths of God 
give place to the opinions of his party ; and will measure the prosperity 
of the gospel in the world by the prosperity of his party, as if he had 
forgot that there are any more men on the face of the earth, or 
thought God regarded none but them. He will not stick to persecute 
all the rest of the church of Christ, if the interest of his sect require it. 
When once men incorporate themselves into a party, it possesseth 
them with another spirit, even with a strange uncharitableness, injust- 
ice, cruelty, and partiality. What hath the Christian world suffered 
by one sect's persecuting another, and faction rising up in fury to 
maintain its own interest, as if it had been to maintain the being of 
all religion ! — Richard Baxter : Christian Directory ; in Practical 
Works, vol. ii. pp. 159-60 ; and vol. vi. p. 184. 

Party spirit is a disposition that cannot be easily defined, and it 
would be difficult to include in a definition of it even its genus and 
species. It is a monstrous composition of all bad genuses and of all 
bad species. It is a hydra that reproduces while it seems to destroy 
itself, and which, when one head hath been cut off, instantly produces 



THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 57 

a thousand more. Sometimes it is superstition, which inclines us U 
deify certain idols, and, after having formed, to prostrate first before 
them. Sometimes it is ignorance, which prevents our perceiving the 
importance of some revealed truths, or the dreadful consequences of 
some prejudices that we had embraced in childhood. Sometimes it is 
arrogance, which rashly maintains whatever it has once advanced, — 
advanced perhaps inconsiderately, but which will afterwards be reso- 
lutely defended till death, for no other reason but because it has been 
once asserted, and because it is too mortifying to yield, and say, " I am 
wrong; I was mistaken." Sometimes it is a spirit of malice and 
barbarity, which abhors, exclaims against, persecutes, and would even 
exterminate, all who dare contradict its oracular propositions. Oftener 
still, it is the union of all these vices together. A party spirit is that 
disposition which envenoms so many hearts, separates so many families, 
divides so many societies ; which has produced so many excommunica- 
tions, thundered out so many anathemas, drawn up so many canons, 
assembled so many councils, and has been so often on the point of 
subverting the great work of the Reformation, the noblest opposition 
that was ever formed against it. — James Saurln : Sermons, voL i. 
p. 44, New York edition of 1844. 

In a Sermon on the Sovereignty of Christ (vol. i. p. 247), this Frencn 
Protestant makes a heart-stirring and eloquent appeal against the spirit of 
bigotry which was in his day so rampant in the Reformed Church; but it is 
too long for insertion here. It would have been gratifying, had this eminent 
divine carried out his principles of toleration and communion, so as to 
include all professing Christians. 

Though, by coercion, crimes, which are outward and overt acts, 
may effectually be restrained, it is not by coercion that those inward 
effects can be produced, — conviction in the understanding, or conver- 
sion in the heart. Now, these in religion are all in all. By racks and 
gibbets, fire and fagot, we may as rationally propose to mend the sight 
of a man who squints or is purblind, as by these means to enlighten 
the infidel's or the heretic's understanding, confute his errors, and 
bring him to the belief of what he disbelieved before. That by such 
methods he may be constrained to profess what he disbelieves still, 
nobody can deny, or even doubt. But to extort a hypocritical profes- 
sion is so far from being to promote the cause of God and religion, 
that nothing, by the acknowledgment of men of all parties, can stand 
more directly in opposition to it. — Dk. George Campbell : Lectures 
on Ecclesiastical History, Lect. 25. 



58 THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 

The animosity and uncharitableness which have evermore prevailed 
among the different denominations of Christians is another cause of the 
growing infidelity of the present age. It is not said now, as in the days 
of old, " See how these Christians love one another ! " but " See how 
these Christians hate one another ! " Catholics damn Protestants, and 
Protestants revile Catholics. One sect of Protestarts anathematizes 
another sect ; every one holding forth the peculiar doctrines of their 
own party as the truths of God, in opposition to the peculiar doctrines 
of those who differ from them. . . . Instead of turning our zeal against 
the immoralities of the age, we have frequently turned it against men 
who, in every moral and religious point of view, were perhaps better 
than ourselves. A spirit of infallibility, in a greater or less degree, 
pervades all parties. In this unchristian strife, the pure spirit of the 
gospel has been banished from the great body of professors, and has 
taken up its abode among a few solitary individuals, dispersed through 
the several churches of Christendom. Men of discerning spirit, seeing 
this to be the state of things through all denominations, are led to 
suppose that there is no truth among any of them. The fact, however, 
is directly the contrary. They have all gotten the saving truth, if they 
would hold it but in piety, charity, and righteousness. They all believe 
in the Saviour of the world. Let them only observe the moral and 
religious precepts of his gospel, and I do not see what more is neces- 
sary to entitle them to our Christian regards. They may not come up 
to the full orthodox belief of the gospel; but they are such characters 
as our Saviour himself would not have treated with severity. And, 
until religion is reduced to the simple form in which he left it, there 
will never be an end to the bickerings and uncharitableness of party, 
and infidelity will of course prevail. — David Simpson : Plea for 
Religion, pp. 111-15. 

Intolerance, under all its various modifications from insult to per- 
secution, from the clamors of bigots and the anathemas of councils to 
the dungeons and the chains and the racks and the flames employed 
by the inquisitors for the glory of God, are the produce of spiritual 

pride Alas ! I am sufficiently versed in the history of churches, 

and the controversies of churchmen, to know with certainty, and to 
lament with sincerity, the " rabid and unrelenting " spirit which fre- 
quently, I do not say exclusively, distinguishes the odium theologicum. 
In the very act of defending that religion which forbids us to " judge 
lest we be judged," those disputants have been too prone to censure 
persons, instead of examining things, — prone to confound particular 



THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 59 

opinions with general principles, — prone to load their adversaries 
with invidious consequences which those adversaries did not foresee 
or which, being told of them, they did not admit ; or which, admit- 
ting them, they would not consider as evidences against their views of 
facts and principles, — prone to assign criminal motives as the causes 
of erroneous tenets, — prone to let loose indiscriminate reproaches on 
the dauntless inquirer and thb shameless scorner, — prone to infer 
deistical propensities for heresy real or supposed, and to insinuate that 
professed deism is employed as a cloak for lurking atheism. Heaven 
forbid that I, or my friends, or my enemies, should have " so learned 
Christ" ! — Dr. Samuel Parr: Works, vol. vi. p. 383; and vol. iv. 
pp. 539-40. 

I have read books professing to recommend the benign religion 
of Christ, and to refute all objections to it, yet written in the very 
gall of bitterness, and displaying a pride and malignity of heart which 
may justly prompt the unbeliever to say, " If your religion, of which 
you profess to be a believer, and which you describe as teaching charity 
or benevolence in its fullest extent, can produce no better specimen 
than your own temper and disposition, let me preserve my good nature, 
and you may keep your Christianity, with all its boasted advantages, in 
your own exclusive possession." The late Bishop Warburton treated 
infidels with a haughty asperity scarcely proper to be shown to thieves 
and murderers, or any the most abandoned members of society. . . . 
Certain it is, that the spirit which he shows towards his opponents is 
not the spirit of grace ; that spirit which is loving, gentle, and easy to 
be entreated. . . . Voltaire and Rousseau would have loved Christianity, 
and probably believed it, if it had. not been distorted and disfigured 
by the malignant passions of angry defenders of it, who showed their 
love of Christ by hating their brother, and who appeared by their ac- 
tions to mean little by then- professions, besides the gratification of 

pride and avarice Warburtonian insolence and ill-nature have 

done more injury to the church, and to the cause of Christianity, 
than any of the writers whom they were intended to gall and mortify. 
— Vicesimus Knox : Christian Philosophy ; in Works, vol vii, 
pp. 205-6, 208. 

In the spirit of the foregoing paragraph, we would express our convic 
tion, that one of the greatest injuries done to the cause of Christianity arises 
from the effort which apologists sometimes make on its behalf, by overstating 
the results of doubt and unbelief, and vilifying the characters of sceptics 
and infidels ; instead of offering a calm but earnest and masterly exposition 
of its principles and evidences. We are far from thinking, that the state of 



60 THE NATURE AND EYILS OF INTOLERANCE. 

mind leading to a rejection of the gospel is favorable to the growth of the 
spiritual affections, to the building-up of a truly disinterested character, or 
to the possession of the best and most cheering conceptions of God's wil] 
and man's destiny; and we would agree with the strongest partisan in con- 
demning that unhallowed will which mocks at whatever is pure or elevating 
in thought, or which tries to sap the foundations of faith in the unseen and 
eternal. But we dare not dive into the hearts of our unbelieving brethren, 
and say that in each and every case the blindness of men to the divinity 
of Christ's mission must necessarily have proceeded from base hearts and 
unholy lives. On the contrary, we hope and trust, that, though they may 
not exhibit those high models of perfection which are attainable by the 
lowliest disciples of Christ, there are some liable to scepticism more from an 
obliquity of their understandings than from a perversion of their hearts; 
who, without being able to own the name of the great Master, to address the 
Creator as their Father, or to hold unquestioning faith in a heaven beyond 
the tomb, have yet received a portion of the spirit of Jesus, have longings 
after a good God " if haply they might find him," with aspirations for 
immortality, and kind thoughts and good deeds for their brethren of man 
kind. And we hope and trust, that, when the Son of man shall sit upon his 
throne of judgment, and reject those who called him u Lord," but who did 
not what he commanded them, he will say to the honest and devout sceptic, 
" Come, thou child of doubt and error; come, thou blessed of my Father, 
who hath pitied thy involuntary wanderings and thy gropings after truth 
and goodness ; come to me ; for, though thou never didst own me personally, 
I accept what thou didst unto my brethren as done unto myself; — come to 
:ne of my Father's mansions, and be a child of God." 

How much is it to be lamented, that the Christian world should 
be so violently agitated by disputes, and divided into factions, on points 
which, it is allowed, in whatever way they are decided, do not enter 
into the essentials of Christianity! When will the time arrive when 
the disciples of Christ shall cordially join hand and heart with all who 
" hold the Head," and no other terms of communion be insisted upon 
in any church but what are necessary to constitute a real Christian ! 
The departure from a principle so directly resulting from the genius of 
Christianity, and so evidently inculcated and implied in the Sacred 
Scriptures, has, in my apprehension, been productive of infinite mis- 
chief; nor is there room to anticipate the period of the universal 
diffusion and triumph of the Christian religion, but in consequence of 
its being completely renounced and abandoned. What can be more 
repugnant to the beautiful idea which our Saviour gives us of his 
church, as one fold under one Shepherd, than the present aspect of 
Christendom, split into separate and hostile communions frowning 
defiance on each other, where each erects itself upon party principles, 



THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 61 

and selects its respective watchword of contention, as though the epithet 
of " militant," when applied to the church, were designed to announce, 
not a state of conflict with the powers of darkness, but of irreconcilable 
intestine warfare and opposition ! — Robert Hall : Preface to Dis- 
course on 2 Cor. iv. 1; in Works, vol i. pp. 131-2. 

It has always seemed to me, that an extreme fondness for our " dear 
mother the panther " is a snare, to which the noblest minds are most 
subject. It seems to me, that all, absolutely all, of our religious 
affections and veneration should go to Christ himself; and that 
Protestantism, Catholicism, and every other name, which expresses 
Christianity, and some differentia or proprium besides, is so far an 
evil, and, when made an object of attachment, leads to superstition 

and error. I groan over the divisions of the church, of all our 

evils I think the greatest, — of Christ's church I mean ; that men 
should call themselves Roman Catholics, Church of England men, 
Baptists, Quakers, all sorts of various appellations ; forgetting that 
only glorious name of Christian which is common to all, and a true 
bond of union. I begin to think that things must be worse before 
they are better, and that nothing but some great pressure from without 
will make Christians cast away their idols of sectarianism ; the worst and 
most mischievous by which Christ's church has ever been plagued. — 
Thos. Arnold : Let 73, 92 ; Life and Correspondence, pp. 223, 238. 

We have quoted these passages of Dr. Arnold, because they express the 
noble and catholic sentiment, that it is the duty of Christians to be more 
firmly attached to the principles which are common to all forms or modifica- 
tions of Christianity than to the differences by which they are distinguished 
from one another. But we do not altogether agree with the excellent writer 
in condemning the use of names, when these are employed only for the 
purpose of indicating the various shades and peculiarities of religious faith. 
So long as the human mind is diversified, as to its powers and capacities, 
in different individuals, by the circumstances of birth, culture, association, 
and example, so long will there be a difference in the conceptions of men 
respecting some of the doctrines of which Christianity consists, the relations 
of these doctrines to each other, and their comparative importance, with 
the requisite modes of expressing them; and, as it is highly improbable that 
all minds will ever be cast in one unvarying mould, or that society will be 
so reconstructed and so monotonized as to produce a precise uniformity 
of tastes and opinions on any subject of engrossing interest, therefore will it 
ever be found convenient and necessary for the purposes of religious inter- 
course, if not for the interests of truth, to mark the various differences in 
theologic belief by the use of terms more specific than that of " Christian." 
The great fault lies not in employing appellations to distinguish one branch 

B 



62 THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 

cf Christ's church from another, but in choosing such as are derived from 
the names of distinguished men, as if parties regarded themselves rather 
as the followers of Arius or Athanasius, of Luther or Calvin, of Socinus, 
Wesley, and others, than as the common disciples of one great Master, — 
the members of only one rightful Head, Jesus Christ. Another fault, not 
less pernicious in its operation and results, is the associating with sectarian 
appellations, ideas of moral, not intellectual, differences ; the regarding some 
of them as significant of all that is divine, and others of all that is demoniac ; 
the applying to those who differ from us, terms which they do not them- 
selves regard as just, and at the same time using them as nicknames, or 
words of reproach, — as the representatives of impiety, blasphemy, and 
irreligion. But that such denominational terms as Unitarian and Trinita- 
rian, or Unitarian Christian and Trinitarian Christian, should excite feelings 
of rancor and ill-will amongst the various branches of the universal church, 
and be employed as synonymous with infidelity, idolatry, or antichristianity, 
is surely as unreasonable and improper as it would be to use the national 
distinctions of Frenchman and Spaniard to signify that these people are the 
natural enemies of Englishmen and Americans, and that they are, and ever 
will be, unworthy of belonging to the human race, — to the family anu 
brotherhood of man. 

Party spirit, in that sense in which I have spoken of it as a thing 
to be wholly renounced and sedulously shunned in religious matters, 
consists in a general, indefinite conformity to the views and practices 
of some party, — a zeal for the advancement of that party and the 
promotion of their objects, generally, and without limitation either of 
the time or of the objects themselves. . . . We are right when the 
objects proposed are in themselves good, and when these, and 
the means by which they are promoted, are distinctly specified : we 
are right in associating together for such purposes, provided we are 
careful to guard our minds against the insensible, insidious encroach- 
ments of party spirit; against being unconsciously led beyond the 
defined limits ; so as to bind ourselves, in any thing that concerns 
religion, by an indefinite, general allegiance to any man or set of men. 
... If any one joins a regularly-formed religious association for the 
distributing of Bibles and other selected books, and for ether such 
specified purposes, he does not bind himself to a general conformity 
of sentiments and practice in other points, with each other, or even 
with the majority of the members, but preserves his original inde- 
pendence. But it is otherwise if a man allows himself to be considered 
as belonging to a party, and as conforming indefinitely to their general 
views, their prevailing tone of sentiment, and their established practice. 
He may flatter himself, indeed, that, whenever he may see reason to 



THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 63 

ditapprore of any of these, he can withdraw. But the odium he would 
incur by such a step is but too likely to make him hesitate at taking 
it ; and in the meantime, while hesitating, he is drawn on by little 
and little to acquiesce in, and ultimately to countenance, much that 
he would originally, and judging for himself, have shrunk from. — 
Archbishop Whately : Essays on Dangers to Christian Faith, 
pp. 92, 94-5, 97-8. 

The divisions of the Christian church are undoubtedly much to be 
deplored. They present a most unseemly appearance to the world, 
of that religion which may be said to be " one and indivisible." They 
imply much imperfection on the part of its professors, occasion great 
stumbling to unbelievers, and impair the energy and resources which 
might be advantageously employed in assailing the common enemy. 
The causes of these divisions are to be sought in the ignorance, the 
weakness, and the prejudices of Christians ; in indolent submission to 
authority on one part, and the love of influence on another ; in the 
power of early habits and associations ; and, above all, in the influence 
of a worldly spirit, which warps and governs the mind in a thousand 
ways. — William Orme, in his edition of Baxter's Practical Works, 
vol. i. pp. 97, 98. 

At that period [the period of the Reformation], Christians of every 
class and party believed that gross religious errors were punishable by 
the civil magistrate, — a Popish doctrine which they had not yet 
renounced, and which, it is to be feared, is not even to this day and 
in the most enlightened part of the world, exterminated from the 
breasts of all Protestants. By cherishing such a principle, they betray 
the best of causes, furnish occasion for the most injurious representa- 
tations of Christianity, and, instead of proving that they have learned 
of their Master, who was " meek and lowly of heart," show that they 
imitate the misguided disciples who were for calling down fire from 
heaven. — Dr. F. A. Cox: Life of Melancthon, pp. 279-80. 

Party spirit in religion is another spurious proof of piety. . . . 
Whenever men act together, the mind, by one of its mysterious 
powers, sees a new being in the union, and soon forms almost a 
personal attachment for it. It enlists men's pride and ambition, and 
arouses all their energies ; and devotion to this imaginary existence 
becomes often one of the strongest passions of the human mind. It 
is one of the sins to which the human heart is most prone, and in 
which it is most impregnable. A man usually thinks it a virtue. He 
sees he is not working for himself, and persuades himself that it is the 



64 THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 

principles of his party which are the object of his attachment. But 
this is not the case ; for, when these principles spread partially into 
other parties, he is always displeased. He is never satisfied at seeing 
his opponents coming to the truth : they must come over to his side. 
This . . . spirit burns everywhere in the Christian church : it influences 
parish against parish, and society against society, and makes each 
denomination jealous and suspicious of the rest. It frowns upon the 
truth and the Christian prosperity which is not found within its own 
pale. It is the spirit of intolerance and exclusion. " We found one," 
it says, " casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him because 
he folio weth not us." Banish this spirit for ever. If men will " cast 
out devils," no matter whom they follow : they must do it, if they do 
it at all, in Jesus' name, and no matter for the rest. We must not 
frown upon real piety or truth, because they do not appear in our own 
uniform. — Jacob Abbott : The Corner-stone, pp. 198-200. 

The bigots of an earlier age [the Jews of Christ's time] were accus- 
tomed to speak of themselves as chosen of God, before all meaner 
creatures, holy and clean; while the Gentile nations were sinners 
beyond the reach of salvation, reprobate dogs. And why was this ? 
It was because they, like the Pharisees of modern times, clung to the 
dogma, " out of their church, no salvation ; " the latent principle of 
death in all those sects which have embraced, or ever do embrace, 

such a creed Every man is to be esteemed who honestly 

endeavors to give a reason for his belief, and claims the freedom of 
its peaceful enjoyment, however mistaken or absurd he may be. To 
despise the intellect of another, to hint his want of integrity, or to 
ridictile his convictions of right, is but poor evidence either of philo- 
sophical judgment or Christian charity. The spirit that leagued with 
an emperor and excited him to murder the Anabaptists of Munster, 
burned Servetus at Geneva, hunted Roger Williams beyond the 
boundaries of civilization with no less savage rage, persecuted the elder 
Carroll in Maryland, and more recently burned the convent at Charles- 
town, as well as the churches of Philadelphia, is part and parcel of 
the bigoted priestcraft that dug the prisons of Venice and erected the 
Inquisition in Spain. Milton had good reason for asserting, that 
" Presbyter is but old priest writ large." — E. L. Magoon : Republi- 
can Christianity, pp. 131, 259. 

The refusal to exercise forbearance, and the attempt to ensure a 
complete uniformity, tend necessarily to produce, and, in the past 
history of the church, have actually produced, consequences the most 



THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 65 

inj irious and deplorable. While the conduct in question involves an 
audacious invasion of the prerogatives of Jesus Christ, by making new 
laws for his church, it tends inevitably to introduce those very strifes 
and divisions which it professes to avert ; it checks free inquiry, and 
nurses a spirit of tame and slavish submission to human authority ; it 
leads the professors of religion to fix their regards chiefly on subordi- 
nate topics and sectarian peculiarities, to the neglect of the vital truths 
of the gospel and " the weightier matters of the law ; " it arrests the 
current of brotherly love, or turns it into a wrong channel, by divert- 
ing it towards those who reflect our own views and sentiments rather 
than towards those who exhibit conspicuously the lineaments of the 
Saviour's lovely image. All these baleful effects it has actually pro- 
duced to a frightful extent; and, in addition, it has sometimes 
occasioned the practice of an unprincipled laxity ; for the members of 
the same church have contented themselves with an agreement in a 
form of words, while yet they differed, and knew that they differed, 
in sentiment; thus tolerating or practising vile dissimulation to 
avoid an avowed and honest forbearance. — Dr. Robert Balmer : 
The Sanpture Principles of Unity ; in Essays on Christian Union, 
pp. 51, 52. 

To avoid doing an apparent injustice to Dr. Balmer, we have given tne 
latter sentence ; but, though heartily agreeing with him in his disapproval 
of" an unprincipled laxity" and "vile dissimulation" as to matters of theo- 
logical opinion, we cannot help thinking that the less a church interferes 
respecting the private sentiments of its members, and the more it attends to 
the purity of their conversations and lives, the better will it be for the true 
interests of Christianity, and for the peace and happiness of man. 

Disputants are loudest and fiercest where God says least 

Notwithstanding the power of public opinion in restraining on plat- 
forms, and in the pulpit, the exhibitions of a wretched sectarian and 
proselytizing spirit, the demon is not cast out, and appears even more 
horrid when it is seen looking from beneath the veil of an angeL 
Party spirit descends meekly from the pulpit, and takes its station at 
the head of the Lord's table, and from thence excommunicates many 
of the Lord's people, w T hom a few minutes before it pronounced to be 
brethren in Christ Jesus. The feast of love is made the feast of 
schism ; and evangelical denominations, within the walls of their own 
temples, are as much keen partisans, excommunicating each other, as 
if there was no common ground on w T hich they could meet, and as if 

all but themselves were given over to Satan Bigotry and 

6* 



66 THE NATURE AND EVILS OF INTOLERANCE. 

sectarianism aire still hot and scorching ; only they are now ashamed 
of their real nature, and have put on various disguises, connected 
more or less with an assumption of extraordinary strictness and piety. 

When the men of the world see professing Christians broken 

up into little parties, which seem to hate each other in the inverse ratio 
in which they are agreed on the great cardinal points of their religion, 
they are naturally led to consider Christianity as based, to a considerable 
extent, upon pride and priestcraft. When they meet with the same 
rivalships and jealousies among saints that they meet with among 
secular men, they judge of them by the same standard. When sect 
" clashes with sect as harshly and unkindly as political factions " do, 
they consider all religious divisions as no better than a strife for power, 
drive all schismatics out of their presence, and turn aside altogether 
from what they consider a lurking, biting, phrenetic religion. The 
bitterness with which theologians will speak and write of each other, 
and the rancor and solemnity with which they will excommunicate 
each other at the head of the Lord's table, while yet they are con- 
fessedly one in Christ Jesus, is to worldly politicians a matter of utter 
loathing. — Dr. Gavin Struthers : Party Spirit, its Prevalence and 
Insidiousness ; in Essays on Christian Union, pp. 381, 385, 391, 
439-40. 

The deplorable workings and effects of the sectarian spirit are pointed 
out with much impartiality in the Essay from which we have made the 
above extract, and are shown not to be peculiar to the Roman Catholic 
church, but to prevail in the English and Scotch establishments, and in the 
various "evangelical" bodies, particularly in North Britain, which have 
dissented from Papal and Protestant Episcopacy. Surely, if men who, 
forgetful of the benevolent spirit of the Master whom they profess to serve, 
and of the whole genius of his religion as contained in the New Testament, 
look down with supercilious pride upon such of their brethren as disagree 
with them merely in forms of church government and in subordinate points 
of faith, — if such men, to whom Christ's commandment of love seems to 
be still almost literally " new " or unheard of, have any just claim to be 
called his disciples, or regarded as members of his invisible church, — 
surely, those whom they pronounce to be heterodox or unevangelical, but 
who, notwithstanding, "love the Lord Jesus in sincerity," and, remembering 
his precept, " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have 
love one to another," would not confine their affections and their sympathies 
tc their own narrow circle, but would extend them to all who " name the 
name of Christ, and depart from iniquity," — surely, these may humbly 
hope that the great Founder of the universal church will permit them to 
Bit at his feet as docile and reverent disciples, to learn more of his heavenly 
mind, and drink richer draughts of his holy and benign spirit- 



THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 67 



SECT. VI. — FAITH, ORTHODOXY, HERESY, SCHISM, AND OTHER TERMS, 
OFTEN USED AS WATCHWORDS OF PARTY W r ARFARE. 

They prove their doctrine orthodox 
By ugly words and blows and knocks. 

Samuel Butler, modified. 

§ 1. Faith and Orthodoxy. 

Almost all sects pretend that they are wiser and of sounder judg- 
ment than all the Christian world besides; yea, those that most 
palpably contradict the Scriptures (as the Papists in their half- 
communion and unintelligible service), and have no better reason why 
they so believe or do but because others have so believed and done 
already. But the greatest pretenders to orthodoxness are not the 
most orthodox ; and, if they were, I can value them for that which 
they excel, without abating my due respect to the rest of the church. 
For the whole church is orthodox in all the essentials of Christianity, 
or else they were not Christians ; and I must love all that are Christians 
with that special love that is due to the members of Christ, though I 
must superadd such esteem for those that are a little wiser or better than 
others, as they deserve. — Richard Baxter : Christian Directory ; in 
Works, vol. ii. p. 122. 

A man may be orthodox in every point ; he may not only esj:>ouse 
right opinions, but zealously defend them against all opposers ; he may 
think justly concerning the incarnation of our Lord, concerning the 
ever-blessed Trinity, and every other doctrine, contained in the oracles 
of God; he may assent to all the three Creeds, — that called the 
Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian ; and yet it is possible he 
may have no religion at all, no more than a Jew, Turk, or Pagan. — 
South ; apud Southefs Commonplace Book, second series, p. 16. 

Every mean person who has nothing to recommend him but his 
orthodoxy, and owes that perhaps wholly to his ignorance, will think 
[if you venture to publish an unfashionable opinion] he has a right to 
trample upon you with contempt, to asperse your character with 
virulent reflections, to run down your writings as mean and pitiable 
performances, and give hard names to opinions which he does not 
understand. — Bishop Hare : Study of the Sa-iptures ; in Sparks 1 3 
Collection of Essays and Tracts, voL ii. p. 178. 



68 THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 

Men have thought it an honor to be styled that which they call 
zealous orthodox, to be firmly linked to a certain party, to load others 
with calumnies, and to damn by an absolute authority the rest of 
mankind, but have taken no care to demonstrate the sincerity and 
fervor of their piety by an exact observation [observance] of the 
gospel morals; which has come to pass by reason that orthodoxy 
agrees very well with our passions, whereas the severe morals of the 
gospel are incompatible with our way of living. — Le Clerc : Five 
Letters on the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, p. 108. 

As to orthodox, I should be glad to know the meaning of the 
epithet. Nothing, you say, can be plainer. The orthodox are those 
who, in religious matters, entertain right opinions. Be it so. How, 
then, is it possible I should know who they are tliat entertain right 
opinions, before I know what opinions are right ? I must therefore 
unquestionably know orthodoxy, before I can know or judge who 
are orthodox. Now, to know the truths of religion, which you call 
orthodox, is the very end of my inquiries ; and am I to begin these 
inquiries on the presumption, that without any inquiry I know it 

already ? There is nothing about which men have been, and 

still are, more divided. It has been accounted orthodox divinity in 
one age, which hath been branded as ridiculous fanaticism in the next. 
It is at this day deemed the perfection of orthodoxy in one country, 
which in an adjacent country is looked upon as damnable heresy. 
Nay, in the same country, hath not every sect a standard of their own ? 
Accordingly, when any person seriously uses the word, before we can 
understand his meaning, we must know to what communion he belongs. 
When that is known, we comprehend him perfectly. By the orthodox 
he means always those who agree in opinion with him and his party ; 
and by the heterodox, those who differ from him. When one says, 
then, of any teacher whatever, that all the orthodox acknowledge his 
orthodoxy, he says neither more nor less than this, " All who are of the 
same opinion with him, of which number I am one, believe him to be 
in the right." And is this any thing more than what may be asserted 
by some person or other, of every teacher that ever did or ever will 
exist ? ... To say the truth, we have but too many ecclesiastic terms 
and phrases which savor grossly of the arts of a crafty priesthood, 
who meant to keep the world in ignorance to secure an implicit faith 
in their own dogmas, and to intimidate men from an impartial inquiry 
jito holy writ. — Dr. George Campbell : Lectures on Systematic 
Theology and Pulpit Eloquence, pp. 112-15. 



THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 69 

A suspicion of fallibility would have been an useful principle to the 
professors of Christianity in every age : it would have choked the spirit 
of persecution in its birth, and have rendered not only the church of 
Rome, but every church in Christendom, more shy of assuming to 
itself the proud title of orthodox, and of branding ever)- other with the 
opprobrious one of heterodox, than any of them have hitherto been. 
... It is difficult for any man entirely to divest himself of all pre- 
judice ; but he may surely take care, that it be not accompanied with 
an uncharitable propensity to stigmatize with reproachful appellations 
those who cannot measure the rectitude of the divine dispensations by 
his rule, nor seek their way to heaven by insisting on the path which 
he, in his overweening wisdom, has arrogantly presented as the only 

one which can lead men thither What is this thing called 

orthodoxy, which mars the fortunes of honest men, misleads the judg- 
ment of princes, and occasionally endangers the stability of thrones ? 
In the true meaning of the term, it is a sacred thing to which every 
denomination of Christians lays an arrogant and exclusive claim, but 
to which no man, no assembly of men, since the apostolic age, can 
prove a title. — Bishop Watson : Preface to Theological Tracts, 
vol. i. pp. xv. xvii. ; and Life, p. 451. 

The most ardent zeal, the most pertinacious obstinacy, is displayed 
in preserving the minutest article of what is called orthodox opinion. 
But, alas ! what, in a world of woe like this, — what signifies our 
boasted orthodoxy in matters of mere speculation, in matters totally 
irrelevant to human happiness or misery? What signifies a jealous 
vigilance over thirty-nine articles, if we neglect one article, — the law 
of charity and love ; if we overlook the " weightier matters " which 
Christ himself enacted as articles of his religion, indispensably to be 
subscribed by all who hope for salvation in him ; I mean forgiveness 
of injuries, mercy, philanthropy, humility ? — Vicesimus Knox : 
Preface to Antipolemus ; in Works, vol. v. pp. 417-18. 

Let us recollect, that speculations, however sound in their princi- 
ples, however exact in their process, and however important in their 
results, are insufficient to fill up the measure of our duty, if they 
terminate solely in our inward persuasion, or in outward profession, or 
in transient though ardent feeling, or in mere orthodoxy, be it real 
or imaginary. — Dr. Samuel Parr : Sermon on Faith ; in Works, 
vol. v. p. 361. 

In the New Testament, the absolute subserviency of doctrinal state- 
ments to the formation of the principles and habits of practical pietv 



70 THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 

is never lost sight of: we are continually reminded, that obedience is 
the end of all knowledge and of all religious impressions. But the 
tendency, it is to be feared, of much popular and orthodox instruction 
is to bestow on the belief of certain doctrines, combined with strong 
religious emotion, the importance of an ultimate object, to the neglect 
of that great principle, that " circumcision is nothing, and uncircum- 
cision nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." — 
Robert Hall : Preface to Antinomianism Unmasked ; in Works, 
vol. ii. p. 461. 

Orthodoxy by itself does not touch the conscience — does not 
quicken the affections : it does not connect itself in any manner with 
the moral faculties. It is not a religion, but a theory ; and, inasmuch 
as it awakens no spiritual feelings, it consists easily either with the 
grossest absurdities or with the grossest corruptions. Orthodoxy, 
powerless when alone, becomes even efficient for evil at the moment 
when it combines itself with asceticism, superstition, and hierarchical 
ambition. What is the religious history of Europe, through a long 
course of time, but a narrative of the horrors and the immoralities 
that have sprung from this very combination ? — Isaac Taylor : 
Lectures on Spiiitual Christianity, pp. 100-1. 

This writer, however, holds Orthodoxy, or Trinitarianism, to be the basis 
of all Christian piety. 

Let us, in explanation of the term "faith," advert to the wide 
distinction which obtains between the popular imagination of what it 
is, and the apostle's definition of what it is. The common conception 
about it is, that it consists in a correct apprehension of the truths of 
theology, or soundness of belief as opposed to error of belief. It 
appears to be a very prevalent impression, that faith lies in our judging 
rightly of the doctrines of the Bible, or that we have a proper under- 
standing of them. And, in this way, the privileges annexed to faith 
in the New Testament are very apt to be regarded as a sort of remu- 
neration for the soimdness of our orthodoxy. Heaven is viewed as a 
kind of reward, if not for the worth of our doings, at least for the 
worth and the justness of our dogmata. Under the old economy, 
eternal life was held out as a return to us for right practice. Under 
the new economy, is it conceived by many, that it is held out to us as 
a return for right thinking. Figure two theologians to be listed, the 
one against the other, in controversy. He who espouses error is 
estimited to be a heretic, and wanting in the faith. He who espouses 



THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 71 

truth is estimated to be a sound believer, so that his faith resolves 
itself into the accuracy of his creed. It is not, " Do this, and you 
shall live ; " but it is, " Think thus, and you shall live ; " and this 
seems to be the popular and prevailing imagination of being saved by 
faith, and being justified by faith. Now, look to the apostolical 
definition of faith, as being the " substance of things hoped for, and 
the evidence of things not seen." .... Let us look to it, not as the 
mere acquiescence of the understanding in the dogmata of any sound 
or reco^inzed creed, but as that which brings the future and the yet 
imseen of revelation so home to the mind, as that the mind is filled 
with a sense of their reality, and actually proceeds upon it. — Dr 
Thomas Chalmers : Select Works, voL i. pp. 410-11. 

It may be safely affirmed, that no weak and fallible man ever yet 
held the whole of revealed truth free from the slightest mistake or 
defect. The bigot, however, will make no such confession. He 
maintains and defends his own creed as being perfect. It is the very 
type of truth. He condemns every man either as not holding the 
truth, or as holding it in a very defective way, who does not see with 
his eyes, and believe with his heart. All must lie down on the bed of 
orthodoxy which he has spread, and be conformed to it in length and 
breadth; otherwise he must be cast out of the church as a heretic, 
and shunned as if infected with leprosy. — Dr. Gavin Struthers : 
Party Spirit ; in Essays on Christian Union, p. 420. 

§ 2. Heresy and Schism. 

It is a vain thing to talk of a heretic; for a man for his heart 
can think no otherwise than he does think. In the primitive times, 
there were many opinions, nothing scarce but some one or other held. 
One of these opinions being embraced by some prince, and received 
into his kingdom, the rest were condemned as heresies; and his 
religion, which was but one of the several opinions, first is said to 
be orthodox, and so have continued ever since the apostles. — John 
Selden : Table Talk : art. 4, Opinion. 

The word " heresy " is used in Scripture in a good sense, for a sect 
or division of opinion ; or sometimes in a bad sense, for a false opinion, 
signally condemned. But no heresies are noted in Scripture but such 
as are great errors practical, such whose doctrines taught impiety, or 
such who denied the coming of Christ directly or by consequence ; 
aot remote or wiredrawn, but prime and immediate. Heresy is not 



72 THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 

an error of the understanding, but an error of the will ; and this is 
clearly insinuated in Scripture, in the style whereof faith and a good 
life are made one duty, and vice is called opposite to faith, and heresy 
opposed to holiness and sanctity. Indeed, if we remember that 
St. Paul reckons heresy amongst the works of the flesh, and ranks it 
with all manner of practical impieties, we shall easily perceive, that, 
if a man mingles not a vice with his opinion, — if he be innocent 
in his life, though deceived in his doctrine, — his error is his misery, 
not his crime. Now, every man that errs, though in a matter of 
consequence, so long as the foundation is entire, cannot be suspected 
justly guilty of a crime to give his error a formality of heresy. If his 
error be not voluntary, and part of an ill life, — then, because he lives 
a good life, he is a good man, and therefore no heretic. A wicked 
person in his error becomes heretic, when the good man in the same 
error shall have all the rewards of faith. For whatever an ill man 
believes, if he therefore believe it because it serves his own ends, be 
his belief true or false, the man hath an heretical mind ; for, to serve 
his own ends, his mind is prepared to believe a lie. But a good 
man that believes what, according to his light and upon the use of his 
moral industry, he thinks true, whether he hits upon the right or 
no, — because he hath a mind desirous of truth, and prepared to 
believe every truth, is therefore acceptable to God, because nothing 
hindereth him from it but what he could not help. A man may 
maintain an opinion that is in itself damnable, and yet he — not 
knowing it so, and being invincibly led into it — may go to heaven r 
his opinion shall burn, and himself be saved. However, I find no 
opinions in Scripture called "damnable" but what are impious in 
materia practica, or entirely destructive of the faith or the body of 
Christianity, such of which St. Peter speaks, chap. ii. 1. — Abridged 
from Jeremy Taylor : Liberty of Prophesying, sect. ii. 2, 8, 12, 22, 
36; in Works, vol. vii. pp. 456, 461-2, 466, 480, 492. 

Deluded people ! that do not consider, that the greatest heresy in 
the world is a wicked life, because it is so directly and fundamentally 
opposite to the whole design of the Christian faith and religion ; and 
that do not consider, that God will sooner forgive a man a hundred 
defects of his understanding than one fault of his will. — Archbishop 
Tillotson : Sermon 34 ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 333, Lond. edit, of 1748. 

Hear me with that remnant of meekness and humility which thou 
nast left, thou confident, bitter, censorious man ! Why must that 
man needs be taken for a heretic ; a schismatic ; a refractory, stubborn, 



THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 73 

self-willed person ; an antichristian, carnal, formal man, who is not of 
thy opinion in point of a controversy, of a form, of an order, of a 
Circumstance, or subscription, or such like ? It is possible it may be 
so ; and it is possible thou mayest be more so thyself. But hast thou 
so patiently heard all that he hath to say, and so clearly discerned the 
truth on thy own side, and that this truth is made so evident to him 
as that nothing but wilful obstinacy can resist it, as will warrant all 
thy censures and contempt ? or is it not an overvaluing of thy own 
understanding which makes thee so easily condemn all as insufferable 

that differ from it ? Moreover, your course is contrary to 

Christian humility, and proclaimeth the most abominable pride of the 
dividers. That you should call all the rest of the world schismatics 
and heretics, and say that none are Christians but you, — why, what 
are you above other men, that you should say, " Come not near me : 
I am holier than you " ? Have none in the world, think you, faith, 
hope, and charity, but you ? Can you indeed believe that none shall 
be saved but you ? Alas that you should not only so much overlook 
God's graces in your brethren, but also be so insensible of your own 
infirmities ! Have you so many errors and sins among you, and yet 
are none of the church but you ? — Kichard Baxter : Practical 
Works, vol. xv. pp. 116-17 ; and vol. xvi. pp. 323-4. 

Why are not ecclesiastical bodies as rigid and severe against heresies 
of practice as they are against heresies of speculation ? Certainly there 
are heresies in morality as well as in theology. Councils and synods 
reduce the doctrines of faith to certain propositional points, and thun- 
der anathemas against all who refuse to subscribe them. They say, 
" Cursed be he who does not believe the Divinity of Christ ; cursed be 
he w r ho does not believe the hypostatical union, and the mystery of the 
cross ; cursed be he who denies the inward operations of grace, and 
the irresistible efficacy of the Holy Spirit ! " I wish they w r ould make 
a few canons against moral heresies. How many are there of this 
kind among our people ! — James Saurin : Sermons, vol. ii. p. 17. 

How much soever of a schismatical or heretical spirit, in the 
apostolic sense of the terms [" schism " and " heresy "], may have 
contributed to the formation of the different sects into which the 
Christian world is at present divided, no person who, in the spirit of 
candor and charity, adheres to that which, to the best of his judgment, 
is right, though in this opinion he should be mistaken, is, in the 
Scriptural sense, either schismatic or heretic ; and he, on the contrary, 
whatever sect he belong to, is more entitled to these odious appella- 

7 



74 THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 

tions, who is most apt to throw the imputation upon others. Both 
terms, for they denote only different degrees of the same bad quality 
always indicate a disposition and practice unfriendly to peace, harmo7<y, 
and love. — Dr. George Campbell : The Four Gospels, Diss. ix. 
part iv. sect. 15. 

Who authorized either you or the pseudo-Athanasius to interpret 
catholic faith by belief, arising out of the apparent predominance of the 
grounds for, over those against, the truth of the positions asserted ; much 
more, by belief as a mere passive acquiescence of the understanding ? 
Were all damned who died during the period when totusfere mundus 
/actus est Arianus, as one of the Fathers admits ? Alas ! alas ! how 
long will it be ere Christians take the plain middle road between into- 
lerance and indifference, by adopting the literal sense and Scriptural 
import of heresy, that is, wilful error, or belief originating in some 
perversion of the will ; and of heretics (for such there are, nay, even 
orthodox heretics), that is, men wilfully unconscious of their own 
wilfulness, in their limpet-like adhesion to a favorite tenet ? — Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge : IAterary Remains ; in Works, vol. v. p. 386-7, 
as edited by Professor Shedd. 

W e Know no greater heresy than unnecessarily to divide good men, 
nor any object more worthy of ambition than to conciliate and unite 
them. Let the profane calumniate; let the sceptic deride; let the 
bigot frown ; let the base and interested partisan seek to cover with 
unmerited dishonor all who cannot lend themselves to the support of 
his darling peculiarities, or his still more darling emoluments : but the 
Christian should endeavor, above all things, to present in his own prac- 
tice, and so to win upon his brethren that they may equally present, in 
theirs, the all-attractive spectacle of fidelity, tempered with goodness, 
and blended with humility and love. — Dr. Robert Stephens M'All : 
Discourses, vol. i. p. 300. 

Dr. M'All was an English Independent, or Orthodox Congregationalist, 
whose Discourses were edited after his death by the celebrated Ward] aw. 
They are replete with Christian sentiment, expressed in a high tone of 
eloquence. 

Meantime, I wish to remind you, that one of St. Paul's favorite 
notions of heiesy is "a doting about strifes of words." One side may 
be right in such a strife, and the other wrong ; but both are heretical 
as to Christianity, because they lead men's minds away from the love 
of God and of Christ to questions essentially tempting to the intel- 
lect, and which tend to no profit towards godliness. And, again, t 



THE WATCHWORDS OF PARTY WARFARE. 75 

think you will find that all the " false doctrines " spoken of by the 
apostles are doctrines of sheer wickedness ; that their counterpart in 
modern times is to be found in the Anabaptists of Munster, or the 
Fifth Monarchy men, or in mere secular high churchmen or hypo* 
critical evangelicals, — in those who make Christianity minister to lust, 
or to covetousness, or to ambition ; not in those who interpret Scripture 
to the best of their conscience and ability, be their interpretation ever 
so erroneous. . . . Make the church a living and active society, like 
that of the first Christians, and then differences of opinion will either 
cease, or will signify nothing. Look through the Epistles, and you 
will find nothing there condemned as heresy but what was mere 
wickedness, if you consider the real nature and connection of the 
tenets condemned. For such differences of opinion as exist among 
Christians now, the fourteenth chapter of the Romans is the applicable 
lesson; not such passages as Tit. iii. 10, or 2 John 10, 11, or Jude 3 
(that much abused verse), or 19 or 23. There is one anathema which 
is, indeed, holy and just, and most profitable for ourselves as well as 
for others, 1 Cor. xvi. 22 ; but this is not the anathema of a fond 
theology. — Dr. Thomas Arnold: Letters 70, 71 ; in Life and 
Correspondence, pp. 221-2. 

If persons make their own crotchets articles of faith, and insist 
upon a perfect uniformity where it is not insisted upon by Jesus, they 
are schismatics of the very worst stamp, while yet they are proclaiming 
themselves strenuous advocates for the truth. — Gavin Struthkrs : 
Party Spirit, its Prevalence and Insidiousness ; in Essays on Chris- 
tian Union, p. 420. 



Such sentiments are honorable alike to the heads and the hearts ot those 
who penned them. They are the deductions of sound reason, or the out- 
bursts of virtuous indignation, against the dicta of a presumptuous and an 
impious Infallibility, which decides, by feeling and prejudice and passion, 
what are truth and error, saving faith and damnable opinion. They may be 
regarded as indirect testimonies to the value of Christian Unitarianism ; for, 
attached as the witnesses were to Trinitarian doctrines, they clung still 
more devotedly to the principles of Christian charity; and these principles 
are surely better promoted by a belief in the doctrine of One Universal 
Father, who " is Love," than by that of a Trinity of persons in the Godhead^ 
with its accompanying tenets. Happily, however, for Christendom, the 
wisdom and goodness which are the legitimate fruits of gospel simplicity 
have a more powerful influence on the hearts and conduct of many of the 
professors of reputed Orthodoxy, than the barren crudities, the metaphysical 
absurdities, and infallible dogmas of creeds. 



76 THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 



SECT. VII. — THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
WISE AND GOOD MEN IN ALL DENOMINATIONS. 

What is a Church ? — Let Truth and Reason speak, 
They would reply, " The faithful, poor, and meek, 
From Christian folds ; the one selected race, 
Of all professions, and in every place." 

Orabbe. 

He that fears the Lord of heaven and earth, walks humbly before 
him, thankfully lays hold of the message of redemption by Christ 
Jesus, strives to express his thankfulness by the sincerity of his obe- 
dience, is sorry with all his soul when he comes short of his duty, 
walks watchfully in the denial of himself, and holds no confederacy 
with any lust or known sin ; if he falls in the least measure, is restless 
till he hath made his peace by true repentance, is true to his promise, 
just in his actions, charitable to the poor, sincere in his devotions ; 
that will not deliberately dishonor God, though with the greatest 
security of impunity ; that hath his hope in heaven, and his conversa- 
tion in heaven ; that dare not do an unjust act, though never so much 
to his advantage, — and all this because he sees Him that is invisible, 
and fears him because he loves him ; fears him as well for his good- 
ness as Ms greatness, — such a man, whether he be an Episcopal, or 
a Presbyterian, or an Independent, or a Baptist ; whether he wears a 
surplice, or wears none; whether he hears organs, or hears none; 
whether he kneels at the communion, or for conscience' sake stands or 
sits, — he hath the life of religion in him, and that life acts in him, 
and will conform his soul to the image of his Saviour, and walk along 
with him to eternity, notwithstanding his practice or non-practice of 
these indifferents. — Sir Matthew Hale: A Discourse of Religion, 
pp. 33-4, Lond. 1684. 

It is a hard case that we should think all Papists and Anabaptists 
and Sacramentaries to be fools and wicked persons. Certainly, among 
all these sects, there are very many wise men and good men, as well 
as erring. And although some ... do not think their adversaries 
look like other men, yet certainly we find, by the results of tneir dis- 
courses and the transactions of their affairs of civil society, that they 
are men that speak and make syllogisms, and use reason, and read 
Scripture ; and although they do no more understand all of it than we 
do, yet they endeavor to understand as much as concerns them, even 
all tliat they can, even all that concerns repentance from dead \vorks > 



WISE AND GOOD MEN IN ALL DENOMINATIONS. 77 

and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And, therefore, methinks this 
also should be another consideration distinguishing the persons ; for, 
if the persons be Christians in their lives, and Christians in their pro- 
fession, — if they acknowledge the eternal Son of God for then Master 
and their Lord, and live in all relations as becomes persons making 
such professions, — why, then, should I hate such persons whom God 
*oves, and who love God ; who are partakers of Christ, and Christ hath 
a title to them ; who dwell in Christ, and Christ in them, — because 
their understandings have not been brought up like mine^ have not 
had the same masters ? &c. — Jeremy Taylor : Epist. Dedic. to the 
IAberty of Prophesying ; in Works, vol. vii. p. ccccii. 

There is but one universal church of Christians in the world, of 
which Christ is the only King and Head, and every Christian is a 
member. . . . If thou hast faith and love and the Spirit, thou art 
certainly a Christian, and a member of Christ and of this universal 
church of Christians. . . . Thou art not saved for being a member of 
the church of Rome or Corinth or Ephesus or Philippi or Thessa- 
lonica, or of any other church, but for being a member of the universal 
church or body of Christ ; that is, a Christian. — Richard Baxter : 
Christian Directory ; in Practical Works, vol. ii. p. 138. 

We should be so far from lessening the number of true Christians, 
and from confining the church of Christ within a narrow compass, so 
as to exclude out of its communion the far greatest part of the profes- 
sors of Christianity, that, on the contrary, we should enlarge the 
kingdom of Christ as much as we can, and extend our charity to all 
churches and Christians, of what denomination soever, as far as regard 
to truth and to the foundations of the Christian religion will permit 
us to believe and hope well of them ; and rather be contented to err a 
little on the favorable and charitable part, than to be mistaken on the 
censorious and damning side. — Archbishop Tillotson : Serm. 31 5 
in Works, vol. ii. p. 266. 

Men's different capacities and opportunities and tempers and edu- 
cation considered, it is in vain to expect that all good men should 
agree in all their notions of religion, any more than we see they do in 
any other concerns whatsoever. And who am I that I should dare to 
pronounce a sentence of reprobation against any one in whom there 
appear all the other characters of an humble, upright, sincere Christian, 
only because he has not perhaps met with the same information, or 
read the same books, or does not argue the same way ; in a word, 
because he is not so wise, 01*, it may be is wiser than I am, and seea 

7* 



78 THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

farther than I do, and therefore is not exactly of my opinion in every 
thing ? . . . Men's understandings are different, and they will argue 
different ways, and entertain different opinions from one another, about 
the same things, and yet may nevertheless deserve on all sides to be 
esteemed very good and wise men for all that. — Archbishop Wake • 
Sermons and Discourses, pp. 184-5. 

It is to be regretted, that, afterwards in the same discourse, this distin- 
guished prelate seems disposed to confine his Christian charity, here so 
liberally expressed, only to Protestants who are agreed as to the " funda- 
mentals of faith.'* 

I think I have but one objection against your proceedings, — your 
insisting only on Presbyterian government, exclusive of all other ways 
of worshipping God. Will not this, dear sir, necessarily lead you, 
whenever you get the upper hand, to oppose and persecute all that 
differ from you in their church government, or outward way of wor- 
shipping God ? . . . For my own part, though I profess myself a mini- 
ster of the church of England, I am of a catholic spirit ; and, if I see 
a man who lcves the Lord Jesus in sincerity, I am not very solicitous 
to what outward communion he belongs. — George Whitefield : 
Letter 150 ; in Works, vol. i. p. 140. 

Persons may be quite right in their opinions, and yet have no 
religion at all ; and, on the other hand, persons may be truly religious, 
who hold many wrong opinions. Can any one possibly doubt of this, 
while there are Romanists in the world ? For who can deny, not only 
that many of them formerly have been truly religious (as Thomas k 
Kempis, Gregory Lopez, and the Marquis de Renty), but that many 
of them, even at this day, are real, inward Christians ? And yet what 
a heap of erroneous opinions do they hold, delivered by tradition from 
their fathers ! Nay, who can doubt of it while there are Calvinists in 
the world, — assertors of absolute predestination ? For who will dare 
to affirm, that none of these are truly religious men ? Not only many 
of them in the last century were burning and shining lights, but 
many of them are now real Christians, loving God and all mankind. 
And yet what are all the absurd opinions of all the Romanists in the 
world, compared to that one, that the God of love, the wise, just, 
merciful Father of the spirits of all flesh, has from all eternity fixed an 
absolute, unchangeable, irresistible decree, that part of mankind shall 
be saved, do what they will, and the rest damned, do what they can ? - • • 
Joiln Wesley : Sermon 60 ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 20. 



WISE AND GOOD MEN IN ALL DENOMINATIONS. 79 

To every truly pious and consistent Christian, literate or illiterate, 
he [the Author of the " Plea "] would give the right hand of fellow- 
ship, and bid him God-speed, in the name of the Lord, wherever he is 
found. ... A liberal-minded and benevolent soul, who embraces every 
human being in the arms, of his charity ; who rises superior to the 
superstitious tribe of infallible doctors, - the genus irritabile vatum ; 
who can pierce through the guise of human distinctions, and trace 
religious excellence among all orders and descriptions of men, — he 
would clasp to his bosom, make him room in Ins heart, and give him 

a place in the attic story of his affections He that worships 

God most spiritually, and obeys him most universally, believing in the 
name of his only-begotten Son, is the best man, and most acceptable 
to the Divine Being, whether he be found in a church, in a Quaker's 
meeting-house, in a Dissenting place of worship of any other descrip- 
tion, or upon the top of a mountain. ..." In every nation," and among 
all denominations of men, " he that feareth God and worketh right- 
eousness is accepted with him." And, if God will accept, why should 
not man ? — David Simpson : Plea for Religion, pp. xxiii. and 97. 

I would educate young men in sentiments of the warmest affection 
and the highest reverence to the established religion of this free and 
enlightened country. I would at the same time endeavor to convince 
them, that, in all the various modes of Christian faith, a serious 
observer may discover some sound principles and many worthy men. 
I would tell them, that the wise and the good cherish within their 
own bosom a religion yet more pure and perfect than any formulary 
of speculation they externally profess ; that their agreement upon 
points of supreme and indisputable moment is greater perhaps than 
they may themselves suspect; and that upon subjects the evidence of 
which is doubtful, and the importance of which is secondary, their 
differences are nominal rather than real, and often deserve to be 
imputed to the excess of vanity or zeal in the controversialist, more 
than to any defect of sagacity or integrity in the inquirer. — Dr. S. 
Parr: Discourse on Education ; in Works, vol. ii. pp. 171-2. 

Where, after all the heart-burnings and blood-shedding occasioned 
by religious wars, — where is the true church of Christ but in the 
hearts of good men ; the hearts of merciful believers, who from prin- 
ciple, in obedience to and for the love of Christ, as well as from 
sympathy, labor for peace ; go about doing good ; consulting, without 
local prejudice, the happiness of all men ; and, instead of confining 
then* good offices to a small part, endeavor to pour oil into the wounds 



80 THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

of suffering human nature ? In the hearts of such men, united in love 
to God and his creatures, is the church of Christ. — Vicesimus Knox : 
Preface to Antipolemus ; in Works, vol. v. p. 418. 

If party names must subsist, let us carefully watch against a party 
spirit j let us direct our chief attention to what constitutes a Christian, 
and learn to prize most highly those great truths in which all good 
men are agreed. In a settled persuasion that what is disputed or 
obscure in the system of Christianity is, in that proportion, of little 
importance, compared to those fundamental truths which are inscribed 
on the page of revelation as with a sunbeam ; whenever we see a Chris- 
tian, let us esteem, let us love him ; and, though he be weak in faith, 

receive him, " not to doubtful disputation." At last the central 

principle of union [among the genuine disciples of Jesus Christ] begins 
to be extensively felt and acknowledged. Amid all the diversities of 
external discipline or subordinate opinion, the seed of God, the princi- 
ple of spiritual and immortal life implanted in the soul, is recognized 
by the sincere followers of the Lamb as the transcendent point of 
mutual attraction in the midst of minor differences. Even Protestants 
and Catholics, influenced by a kindred piety, can now cordially embrace 
each other ; as in the case of that zealous professor of the Romish 
church to whom I before referred [Leander Van Ess], who corresponds 
in terms of cordial affection with the Protestant secretary of the Bible 
Society for its foreign department. The essential spirit of religion 
begins to assert its ascendancy over all besides. The most enlightened, 
the selectest Christians in every denomination are ready to cultivate 
an intercourse with kindred spirits, with all who hold the same essen- 
tial principles, in any other. — Robert Hall : Sermons ; in Works, 
vol. iii. pp. 180 and 420-1. 

Religious sects are not to be judged from the representations of 
their enemies, but are to be heard for themselves, in the pleadings 
of their best writers, not in the representations of those whose intempe- 
rate Zeal is a misfortune to the sect to which they belong. . . . Imitate 
the forbearance of God, who throws the mantle of his mercy over all, 
and who will probably save, on the last day, the piously right and the 
piously wrong, seeking Jesus in humbleness of mind. — Sydney 
Smith : Sermon on Christian Charity ; in Works, p. 3 10. 

For the rest, I think as that man of true catholic spirit and apos- 
tolic zeal, Richard Baxter, thought ; and my readers will thank me 
for conveying my reflections in his own words, in the following golden 
passage from his Life :..."! doubt not that God hath many sanctified 



WISE AND GOOD MEN IN ALL DENOMINATIONS. 81 

ones among them [the Papists], who have received the true doctrine 
of Christianity so practically, that their contradictory errors prevail not 
against them, to hinder their love of God and their salvation ; but that 
their errors are like a conquerable dose of poison, which a healthful 
nature doth overcome. And I can never believe, that a man may not 
1 e saved by that religion which doth but bring him to a trae love of 
God and to a heavenly mind and life, nor that God will ever cast a 
soul into hell that truly loveth him." — S. T. Coleridge : Aids to 
Reflection ; in Works, vol. i. p. 240. 

Amongst us there is a host of theologians, each wielding his sepa- 
rate authority over the creed and the conscience of his countrymen ; 
and you Catholics have justly reproached us with our manifold and 
never-ending varieties. But here is a book [the Bible], the influence 
of which is throwing all these differences into the background, and 
bringing forward those great and substantial points of agreement which 
lead us to recognize the man of another creed to be essentially a 
Christian ; and we want to widen this circle of fellowship, that we may 
be permitted to live in the exercise of one faith and of one charity 
along with you. — Dr. Thomas Chalmers : Select Works, vol. iv. 
p. 247. 

These are matters particular, but all bearing upon the great philo- 
sophical and Christian truth, which seems to me the very truth of 
truths, that Christian unity and the perfection of Christ's church are 
independent of theological articles of opinion ; consisting in a moral 
state and moral and religious affections, which have existed in good 
Christians of all ages and all communions, along with an infinitely 
varying proportion of truth and error ; that thus Christ's church has 
stood on a rock, and never failed ; yet has always been marred with 
much of intellectual error, and also of practical resulting from the 

intellectual I want to get out a series of " Church-of-England 

Tracts," which, after estabHshing again the supreme authority of Scrip- 
ture and reason against tradition, councils, and fathers, and showing 
that reason is not rationalism, should then take two lines, — the one 
negative, the other positive ; the negative one showing that the pre- 
tended unity, which has always been the idol of Judaizers, is worthless, 
impracticable, and the pursuit of it has split Christ's church into a 
thousand sects, and will keep it so split for ever : the other position, 
showing that the true unity is most precious, practicable, and has in 
feet been never lost ; that, at all times and in all countries, there has 
been a succession of men, enjoying the blessings and showing forth 



82 THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

the fruits of Christ's Spirit ; that in their lives, and in what is truly 
their religion, — i.e. in their prayers and hymns, — there has been a 
wonderful unity ; that all sects have had amongst them the marks of 
Christ's catholic church, in the graces of his Spirit, and the confession 
of his name ; for which purpose it might be useful to give, side by 
side, the martyrdoms, missionary labors, &c., of Catholics and Arians, 
Romanists and Protestants, Churchmen and Dissenters. Here is a 
grand field, giving room for learning, for eloquence, for acuteness, for 
judgment, and for a true love of Christ, in those who took part in it j 
and capable, I think, of doing much good. — Dr. Thomas Arnold : 
Letters 94, 130 ; in LAfe and Correspondence, pp. 239, 275. 

In the most comprehensive sense of the term, the Christian church 
includes all genuine saints or believers ; all, in every land, who receive 
Jesus Christ as their Prince and Saviour, who submit to him as their 
supreme and infallible guide in matters of religion, who rely for pardon 
and salvation on his atoning sacrifice, and who sincerely consecrate 
themselves to his service. All such persons, however widely sepa- 
rated in respect of place, and however diversified by external circum- 
stances, or even by minor distinctions in religion, are represented in 
Scripture as " being not of the world, but called out of the world," 
and as component members of the same spiritual and heavenly associa- 
tion. — Dr. Robert Balmer : The Scripture Principles of Unity ; 
in Essays on Christian Union, p. 21. 

This definition of the " Christian church" is sufficiently wide to include 
all believers in Jesus as the Messiah, and, consequently, all Unitarians who 
recognize the special inspiration of the same holy Personage, if the phrase 
"atoning sacrifice" be understood to refer to the death of Christ as one 
of the means appointed by God to reconcile to himself his erring and sinful 
children. We know not what was Dr. Balmer's conception of the atone- 
ment; but it is well known that the opinions of " orthodox " Christians differ 
much from each other on this point, some of them approximating to the 
views held by Unitarians. 

I never can think of a narrow-minded Christian, — a Christian wno, 
instead of giving free scope to his Christian affections, opening and 
expanding his heart to the admission of the entire family of God, 
contracts his spirit, and limits his communion of love to the denomi- 
nation with which he is connected, — or of the man who actually 
imagines that family of God to consist of no more than those who 
assent to the shibboleth of his little party, — I never can think of such 
% man otherwise than as one who, through the operation of a widely 



WISE AND GOOD MEN IN ALL DENOMINATIONS. 83 

mistaken principle, is cheating himself of pleasure, and of pleasure the 
highest, the richest, the most exquisite in its character. ... I would 
not for the world be the man who thus locks up his heart in an ice- 
house ; who puts the short chain and the galling collar of bigotry on 
the neck of his Christian charity ; who can look round, with a narrow 
sectarian satisfaction, on the members of his own little sect, and with 
cold indifference, or something worse, towards all beyond the pale, — 
can count, one by one, the number of those whom alone he owns as 
his brethren, and expects to meet in heaven ; who estimates the 
Christianity of his party, and the evidence of its being the true flock 
of Christ, by its diminutiveness ; finding in this his solace for what 
others can trace to far different causes, — to the wildness of its dogmas, 
and the uncharitable censoriousness of its members. — Dr. Ralph 
Wardlaw, in Essays on Christian Union, pp. 291-3. 

The true church, the invisible community, is really and indivisibly 
one. Amidst all this division and disruption, beneath these angry and 
contentious elements, there is an essential unity, which, though limited 
to no age, confined to no country, restrained to no party, and seen in 
its entfreness by no eye but that which is omniscient, really and always 
exists ; a unity which nothing can impair, and which, while it is ever 
gathering up into itself the redeemed of the Lord, of every age, coun- 
try, and communion, equally rejects the unregenerate of all of them. . . . 
Divide as they may into separate, visible communions, they [believers] 
cannot break away from the fellowship of the one invisible communion 
of saints. Into whatever number of distinct churches they may arrange 
themselves, they are fellow-members of the holy catholic church ; and 
in their holier and happier moments they feel it, and rejoice in it, 
when, from the exercise of that faith which unites them to Christ, 
there arises a love too fervent and expansive to be confined within the 
narrow limits of their own party, and which, bursting through all 
sectarian barriers, flows in one mighty stream of holy sympathy to 
all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. — John Angell 
James: Union in relation to the Religious Parties of England; in 
Essays on Christian Union, pp. 148-50. 

The true church is built on the foundation of the purest as well as 
most sacred liberty, and is cemented with Unconstrained confidence 
and mutual love, the strongest of all bonds. It is a voluntary assem- 
blage of equals, wherein every one obeys, and no one commands 

The voluntary association of a truly Christian brotherhood, where each 
one enters and retires freely, seeking individual enjoyment only in the 



34 THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

general welfare, according to the simple conditions determined by one 
Lord, one faith, and one baptism, is the most efficacious alleviation, if 
not cure, of the three grand evils of this world ; penury, bondage, and 
corruption. — E. L. Magoon: Repub. Christianity, pp. 165-6, 313. 

We want, as the great Robinson believed, " more light to break 
forth from God's holy word," — not from the formulas or the cate- 
chisms or the schools or the doctors, but from God's holy word, and 
especially from those parts of the word which represent the Christian 
truth as spirit and life, attainable only as our heart and spirit are con- 
figured to it, and able to offer it that sympathy which is the first 
condition of understanding, — attainable only by such as are in the 
Spirit themselves. This . . . will bring us ... an era of renovated 
faith, spreading from circle to circle through the whole church of God 
on earth ; the removal of divisions, the smoothing away of asperities, 
the realization of love as a bond of perfectness in all the saints. It 
will bring in such an era as many signs begin to foretoken ; for it comes 
to me publicly, as relating to bodies of Christian ministers, and circles 
of believers in distant places, that they are longing for some fuller 
manifestation of grace, and debating the possibility of another and 
holier order of Christian life. It comes to me also privately, every few 
days, that ministers of God and Christian brethren, called to be saints, 
having no concert but in God, are hungering and thirsting after right- 
eousness in a degree that is new to themselves, daring to hope and 
believe that they may be filled ; testifying joyfully that Christ is a more 
complete Saviour, and the manifestation of God in the heart of faith 
a more intense reality, than they had before conceived. Meantime, 
as we all know, a feeling of fraternity is growing up silently in distant 
parts of the Christian world. Bigotry is tottering, rigidity growing 
flexible, and Christian hearts are yearning everywhere after a day 
of universal brotherhood in Christ Jesus. . . . Indeed, it is even a 
great maxim of philosophy, that, when we see men wide asunder 
beginning to take up the same thoughts and fall into the same senti- 
ments, and that without concert or communication, we are generally 
to believe that something decisive in that direction is preparing ; for 
it is the age that is working in them, or the God rather, probably, of 
all ages ; and, accordingly, what engages so many at once is only the 
quickening in them of that seed on whose stalk the future is to blos- 
som. Should we not, therefore, expect a gradual appearing of new 
life, which years only can prepare ? Shall we not even dare to spread 
our Christian confidences by the measures of Providence, and in this 



WISE AND GOOD MEN IN ALL DENOMINATIONS. 85 

manner take up the hope, that, when so many signs and yearnings 
meet in their fulfilment, we may see a grand reviving of religion, that 
shall be marked by no village-boundaries, no walls of sect or name, 
but shall penetrate, vivify, and melt into brotherhood, at last, all who 
love our Lord Jesus Christ on earth ? — Horace Bushnell : God in 
Christ, pp. 297-9. 

The liberal sentiments expressed in this section are not concessions in 
favor of Unitarianism considered by itself, or as one of the numerous 
branches of the religion of Jesus. Indeed, some of their authors would 
refuse the name of " Christian " to the worshipper of the Father only, whom 
Jesus addressed in prayer. But they are testimonies to the value and 
excellence of those great principles of charity and fraternal love, which, 
though constituting an essential and a prominent feature of Unitarianism, 
are more or less involved in every form of the Christian faith, and are 
deeply cherished by the truly catholic minds of every church, however 
they may be obscured, or impeded in their operation, by such dogmas of 
human conceit as belie the spirit of the gospel. According to these senti- 
ments, Christianity was intended by its Founder, not for a few, but for all. 
His church embraces all, of whatever creed or denomination, who consecrate 
themselves to the service of God, Christ, and humanity. Individuals may 
err as to matters which are indifferent in themselves, or are obscurely set 
forth in Scripture ; but, if they love goodness and reverence truth, — if they 
are faithful to the light which has been imparted to them, — they may all 
bend with lowly minds and contrite hearts in the mighty temple which the 
Saviour has erected to the praise of the universal Father. Men and women 
are disciples of Christ, not because they are Calvinists or Arminians, Presby- 
terians or Congregationalists, Papists or Protestants, but because, believing 
in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, they have the spirit of 
his Son. They are members of Christ's church, not because they are 
orthodox, can utter the shibboleths of the parties to which they are attached, 
or talk profoundly of the divine essence and decrees, but because in their 
words and their actions, in their lives and their deaths, they adopt and 
practise those common principles of the gospel, — love to God, and love to 
man, — which bigotry may mar, but cannot destroy ; which superstition 
may blot, but never expunge; which error and sophisms may for a while 
hide from he view, but are unable wholly to conceal. 

" Religion pure, 
Unchanged in spirit, though its forms and codes 

Wear myriad modes, 
Contains all creeds within its mighty span, — 
The love of God, displayed in love of man." 

The sentiments, indeed, which we have quoted in the preceding pages bear 
no proportion to the narrow-minded opinions laid down in many theological 
writings ; but it would be an easy and a delightful task to make additional 
extracts cf a similar character and tendency. 

8 



86 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 



SECT. VIII. — UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR THEIR WORTH, PIETY 
INTELLIGENCE, AND LEARNING. 

He who is truly a good man is more than half-way to being a Christian, by 
whatever name he is called. — South. 

4 1. Individual Unitarians. 

The person of Arius was tall and graceful ; his countenance calm, 
pale, and subdued ; his manners engaging ; his conversation fluent 
and persuasive. He was well acquainted with human sciences ; as a 
disputant subtle, ingenious, and fertile in resources. — H. H. Milman : 
History of Christianity, book iii. chap. 4. 

Arius ... is said to have been ... of a severe and gloomy appear- 
ance, though of captivating and modest manners. The excellence 
of his moral character seems to be sufficiently attested by the silence of 
his enemies to the contrary. That he was of a covetous and sensual 
disposition is an opinion unsupported by any historical evidence. — 
Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman 
Biography and Mythology, art. " Arius." 

[Andrew] Dudith, who was certainly one of the most learned and 
eminent men of the sixteenth century, was born at Buda, in the year 
1533. . . . He had, by the force of his genius and the study of the ancient 
orators, acquired such a masterly and irresistible eloquence, that in all 
public deliberations he carried every thing before him. . . . He was well 
acquainted with several branches of philosophy and the mathematics ; 
with the sciences of physic, history, theology, and the civil law. . . . 
His life was regular and virtuous, his manners elegant and easy, and 
his benevolence warm and extensive. — Archibald Maclaine, as 
quoted by Dr. Murdoch, in his translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical 
History, book iv. cent. xvi. sect. 3, part 2, chap. 4, § 9, note 20. 

Dudith, an enlightened advocate for liberty of conscience, as well as an 
eminent scholar, was, in all probability, a Unitarian; but, as Maclaine and 
others speak doubtfully of this matter, the reader may, if he chooses, regard 
him only as a great and good man, belonging, without any peculiar desig- 
nation, to the universal church of Christ. 

Laelius Socinus was the son of Marianus, a celebrated lawyer ; and 
to great learning and talents he added, as even his enemies acknow- 
ledge, a pure and blameless life The affairs of the Unitarians 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 87 

[in Poland] assumed a new aspect under the dexterity and industry of 
Faustus Socinus ; a man of superior genius, of moderate learning, of a 
firm and resolute spirit, less erudite than his uncle Laelius, but morr* 
bold and courageous. ... By his wealth, his eloquence, his abilities as 
a writer, the patronage of the great, the elegance of his manners, and 
other advantages which he possessed, he overcame at length all diffi- 
culties; and, by seasonably yielding at one time, and contesting at 
another, he brought the whole Unitarian people to surrender to those 
opinions of his which they had before contemned, and to coalesce and 
become one community. — J. L. Mosheim : Ecclesiastical History, 
book iv. cent xvi. sect. 3, part 2, chap. 4, §§ 1 and 11 ; Dr. Murdochs 
translation. 

Such and so considerable a man was [Faustus Socinus] the author 
and patron of this sect. All those qualities that excite the admiration 
and attract the regards of men, met in him ; that, as it wore with a 
charm, he bewitched all who conversed with him, and left on their 
minds strong impressions of wonder and affection towards him. He 
so excelled in fine parts and a lofty genius ; such were the strength 
of his reasonings and the power of his eloquence ; he displayed, in the 
sight of all, so many distinguished virtues, which he either professed, 
or counterfeited in an extraordinary degree, — that he appeared formed 
to engage the attachment of all mankind ; and it is not the least sur- 
prising that he deceived great numbers, and drew them over to his 
party. So that what Augustin said of Faustus Maniehaeus may not 
improperly be applied to Faustus Socinus; that he was "magnum 
Diaboli laqueum," the Devil's decoy. — George Ashwell : De Socino 
et Socinianismo, p. 18; as quoted by Toulmin, in his Memoirs of 
Socinus, pp. 15, 16. 

Amid the ill temper displayed in this passage, it will be seen that the 
writer was forced to pay a high compliment to the virtues and genius of a 
man whose name has been so often held as synonymous with all that is vile 
and blasphemous in theological opinions. But, though Unitarians, whether 
believers or disbelievers in the pre-existence of Christ, have reason to 
venerate Socinus for what he did and suffered on behalf of their leading 
doctrine, — the simple oneness and paternal character of God, — they can- 
not regard him as the author or founder of their views, or as their leader in 
matters of religion; nor can they consent to be called by his honorable 
name. Thankful for all the helps which God has vouchsafed to them by 
the labors of the good and wise either of their own denomination or of 
others, they dare not bend in lowly reverence before any Lord and Master 
but the Man of Nazareth, the Holy One of God. 



88 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

In this unhappy battle [the battle of Newbury, 1643] was slain thf 
lord viscount Falkland ; a person of such prodigious parts of learning 
and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversa 
tion, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, 
and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that, if there were 
no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single 
loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity. . . . He 
was a great cherisher of wit and fancy and good parts in any man, 
and, if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and 
bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune ; of which, in 
those administrations, he was such a dispenser as if he had been trusted 
with it to such uses, and if there had been the least of vice in his ex- 
pense, he might have been thought too prodigal. . . . His house being 
within ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship 
with the most polite and accurate men of that university ; who found 
such an immenseness of wit and such a solidity of judgment in him, 
so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast 
knowledge, that he was not ignorant in any thing, yet such an exces- 
sive humility as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted, 
and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air. . . . He was 
so great an enemy to that passion and uncharitableness which he saw 
produced by difference of opinion in matters of religion, that, in all 
disputations with priests and others of the Roman church, he affected 
to manifest all possible civility to their persons, and estimation of their 
parts. . . . Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four and 
thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the business of 
life, that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the 
youigest enter not into the world with more innocence ; and whosoever 
leads such a life needs not care upon how short warning it be taken 
from him. — Lord Clarendon : History of the Rebellion, voL iiL 
pp. 185-8, 198; Oxford, 1849. 

The evidence for Lord Falkland's Unitarianism will be found in Wal 
lace's Antitrinitarian Biography, vol. iii. pp. 152-6. According to John 
Aubrey, as quoted in that work, Lord Falkland " was the first Socinian in 
England." 

We cite no appreciatory notices of " the ever-memorable John Hales of 
Eton" and " the immortal Chillingworth," because the evidence for their 
Unitarianism is less satisfactory. Whatever may have been their views 
respecting God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, their Christian principles were 
too broad to permit a bigoted adherence to any religious party, — too catho 
lie to be moulded into any sectarian shape. 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 89 

Sir Isaac Newton [was] the most splendid genius that has yet 
adorned human nature, and [is] by universal consent placed at the head 
of mathematics and of science. . . . He was exceedingly courteous and 
affable, even to the lowest, and never despised any man for want of capa- 
city ; but always expressed freely his resentment against immorality or 
impiety. He not only showed a great and constant regard to religion 
in general, as well by an exemplary life as in all his writings, but was 
also a firm believer in revealed religion, with one exception, — an 
important one, indeed, — that his sentiments on the doctrine of the 
Trinity by no means coincided with what are generally held. ... An 
innate modesty and simplicity showed itself in all his actions and 
expressions. His whole life was one continued series of labor, patience, 
charity, generosity, temperance, piety, goodness, and every other vir- 
tue, without a mixture of any known vice whatsoever. — Alexander 
Chalmers : Biographical Dictionary, art. " Newton, Sir Isaac." 

When we look back on the days of Newton, we annex a kind 
of mysterious greatness to him, who, by the pure force of his under- 
standing, rose to such a gigantic elevation above the level of ordinary 
men ; and the kings and warriors of other days sink into insignificance 
around him ; and he, at this moment, stands forth to the public eye 
in a prouder array of glory than circles the memory of all the men 
of former generations ; and, while all the vulgar grandeur of other 
clays is now mouldering in forgetfulness, the achievements of our great 
astronomer are still fresh in the veneration of his countrymen, and 
they carry him forward on the stream of time with a reputation ever 
gathering, and the triumphs of a distinction that will never die. . . . 
I cannot forbear to do honor to the unpretending greatness of Newton, 
than whom I know not if ever there lighted on the face of our world, 
one in the character of whose admirable genius so much force and 
so much humility were more attractively blended. — Dr. Thomas 
Chalmers : Astronomical Discourses, Discourse 2 ; in Select Works, 
vol. iv. pp. 370, 372. 

If Christianity be not in their estimation true [if. in the estimation 
of absolute unbelievers, Christianity be not true], yet is there not at 
least a presumption in its favor, sufficient to entitle it to a serious 
examination, from its having been embraced, and that not blindly and 
implicitly, but upon full inquiry and deep consideration, by Bacon 
and Milton and Locke and Newton, and much the greater pai t of those 
who, by the reach of their understandings or the extent of tl eh* know- 
ledge, and by the freedom too of their minds, and their daring to 

8* 



90 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

combat existing prejudices, have called forth the respect and admira- 
tion of mankind ? . . . . Through the bounty of Providence, the more 
widely spreading poison of infidelity has in our days been met with 
more numerous and more powerful antidotes. One of these has been 
already pointed out ; and it should be matter of farther gratitude to 
every real Christian, that, in the very place on which modern infidelity 
had displayed the standard of victory, a warrior in the service of reli- 
gion, a man of the most acute discernment and profound research, has 
been raised up by Providence to quell their triumph. It is almost 
superfluous to state, that Sir William Jones is here meant, who, from 
the testimony borne to his extraordinary talents by Sir John Shore, 
in his first address to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, appears to have 
been a man of most extraordinary genius and astonishing erudition. — 
William Wilberforce : Practical View, chap. vii. sect. 3. 

With the exception of Lord Bacon, the men here named, whose moral 
and intellectual qualities rank them so high in the scale of humanity, and 
whose attachment to or defence of the Christian faith is regarded as pre- 
sumptive evidence in its behalf, cherished, as is now well known, Unitarian 
opinions. To all who share in Wilberforce's admiration at seeing those men 
of master-minds sitting reverentially at the feet of Jesus, and who agree with 
him in the inference which he has drawn, the following remark by the same 
writer, in immediate connection, will scarcely be regarded in any other light 
than as inconsistent and illogical, if not unjust: "In the course which we 
lately traced from nominal orthodoxy to absolute infidelity, Unitarianism 
is, indeed, a sort of half-way house, ... a stage on the journey, where some- 
times a person indeed finally stops, but where not unfrequently he only 
pauses for a while, and then pursues his progress." So far from being true 
that the adoption of Unitarian principles generally leads to infidelity, as is 
implied in the charge adduced, that, with all its faults and shortcomings, 
probably no denomination in Christendom has been more faithful to its pro- 
fessions, or, if the number of its adherents be taken into account, has done 
so much in presenting the evidences of Christianity in a clear and cogent 
point of view, than that of Unitarians. Can Orthodoxy, with all its array 
of truly distinguished writers, place the names of any defenders of our 
common faith above those of Nathaniel Lardner, Joseph Priestley, William 
Ellery Channing, and Andrews Norton? We mean not in respect to their 
talents or their genius, — though they were unquestionably men of powerful 
intellect, — but merely as to the amount or the worth of their services as 
" apologists " for Christianity. 

This year [1698], Thomas Firmin, a famous citizen of London, 
died. He was in great esteem for promoting many charitable designs ; 
for looking after the poor of the city, and setting them to work ; for 
raising great sums for schools and hospitals, and, indeed, for charities 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 91 

of all sorts, private and public. He had such credit with the richest 
citizens, that he had the command of great wealth, as oft as there was 
occasion for it ; and he laid out his own time chiefly in advancing all 
such designs. These things gained him a great reputation. He was 
called a Socinian, but was really an Arian. . . . Archbishop Tillotson, 
and some of the bishops, had lived in great friendship with Mr. Fmnin, 
whose charitable temper they thought it became them to encourage. — 
Bishop Burnet : History of his Own Time, vol. iii. p. 292 ; Lond. 
1809. 

I was exceedingly struck at reading the following Life j having long 
settled it in my mind, that the entertaining wrong notions concerning 
the Trinity was inconsistent with real piety. But I cannot argue 
against matter of fact. I dare not deny that Mr. Firmin was a pious 
man, although his notions of the Trinity were quite erroneous. — 
John Wesley : Preface to an Extract from the IAfe of Thomas 
Firmin ; in Works, vol. vii. p. 574. 

[William Whiston] has all his life been cultivating piety and virtue 
and good learning ; rigidly constant himself in the public and private 
duties of religion, and always promoting in others virtue and such 
learning as he thought would conduce most to the honor of God, by 
manifesting the greatness and wisdom of his works. He has given 
the world sufficient proofs that he has not misspent his time, by very 
useful works of philosophy and mathematics : he has applied one to 
the explication of the other, and endeavored by both to display the 
glory of the great Creator. — Bishop Hare : Study of the Scriptures ; 
in Sparks 1 s Collection of Essays and Tracts, vol. ii. p. 163. 

Newton and Locke were esteemed Socinians; Lardner was an 
avowed one ; Clarke and Whiston were declared Arians ; Bull and 
Waterland were professed Athanasians. Who will take upon him to 
say, that these men were not equal to each other in probity and Scrip- 
tural knowledge ? And, if that be admitted, surely we ought to learn 
no other lesson from the diversity of their opinions, except that of 
perfect moderation and good-will towards all those who happen to 
differ from ourselves. — Bishop Watson : Appendix to Theological 
Tracts, vol. vi. 

I do actually feel a constant and deep sense of your goodness to 
me ; and, which is much more, of your continual readiness to serve the 
public with those distinguished abilities which God has been pleased to 
give you, and which have rendered your writings so great a blessing 
to the Christian world. ... In the interpretation of particular texts, 



92 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

and the manner of stating particular doctrines, good men and good 
friends may have different apprehensions : but you always propose your 
sentiments with such good humor, modesty, candor, and frankness, as 
is very amiable and exemplary ; and the grand desire of spreading 
righteousness, benevolence, prudence, the fear of God, and a heavenly 
temper and conversation, so plainly appears, particularly in this volume 
of sermons, that, were I a much stricter Calvinist than I am, I should 
honor and love the author, though I did not personally know him. — 
Dr. Philip Doddridge : Letter to Dr. Nathaniel Lardner ; apud 
Kippis's Life of Lardner, Appendix No. 8. 

Numberless tributes of respect have been paid by all sects of Christians 
to this indefatigable writer and good man. 

I must contend, that the " Essay on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and 
his Expectations " [by David Hartley], stands forward as a specimen 
almost unique of elaborate theorizing, and a monument of absolute 
beauty, in the perfection of its dialectic ability. In this respect, it has, 
to my mind, the spotless beauty and the ideal proportions of some 
Grecian statue. — Thomas De Quincey : Literary Reminiscences, 
vol. i. pp. 169, 170. 

This may well be regarded as high praise, coming, as it does, from a 
writer so able, but yet so prejudiced, as De Quincey; who introduces it by 
saying that " Coleridge was profoundly ashamed of the shallow Unitarianism 
of Hartley,'* and who takes frequent opportunity, in his writings, of speak- 
ing contemptuously of " Socinians " and " Socinianism," as well as of those 
divines in the church of England whom he accuses of favoring Unitarian 
sentiments. 

Were I to publish an account of silenced and ejected ministers, I 
should be strongly tempted to insert Mr. Lindsey in the list which he 
mentions in his " Apology " with so much veneration. He certainly 
deserves as much respect and honor as any one of them for the part 
he has acted. Perhaps few of them exceeded him in learning and 
piety. I venerate him as I would any of your confessors. As to his 
particular sentiments, they are nothing to me. An honest, pious man, 
who makes such a sacrifice to truth and conscience as he has done, is 
a glorious character, and deserves the respect, esteem, and veneration 
of every true Christian. — Job Orton: Letters, vol. ii. p. 159; as 
quoted by Belsham, in his Memoirs of Theophilus Lindsey, p. 41. 

It is said by some writers, that Orton, who was the assistant and friend 
of Dr. Doddridge, became, in his latter years, an Arian. In the above-cited 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH 93 

paragraph, he refers to the circumstance of Lindsey's resignation of the 
vicarage of Catterick in Yorkshire, the advantages of which he renounced, 
on account of his having embraced the principles of Unitarianism, though 
he had no prospect of finding means of subsistence. 

Reverend and dear Sir, — Although I am far separated from you, 
and possess but few opportunities of intercourse with you, yet my 
heart ever contemplates you with affection and gratitude. Nor, in- 
deed, can it be otherwise ; for, while I feel myself surrounded with 
comforts, I cannot, I trust, ever forget the man to whose kindness so 
many of them are owing. . . . Whatever differences of opinion may 
exist between us on religious subjects, I hope and trust that I shall be 
enabled to imitate that sincerity of soul, of which you have given me 
and the world so bright an example. My heart, I can truly say, is alive 
to the duties and the importance of Christianity, and I trust that I am 
not altogether a stranger to its pleasures. — Wm. Winterbotham : 
Extract from a Letter to the Rev, Theophilus Lindsey. 

Mr. Winterbotham was minister of a Calvinistic congregation at 
Plymouth Dock, who, under the Pitt administration, suffered four years' 
imprisonment on a false charge of having uttered seditious language. In 
this letter, written several years afterwards, he alludes to the sympathy and 
kindness which Lindsey had manifested towards him during his confine- 
ment. See Belsham's Memoirs of Lindsey, pp. 358-61. 

Though of a sentiment in religion very different, I must say that 
Lindsey, Jebb, Hammond, Disney, and others, who have sacrificed 
their preferment [in the church of England] to the peace of their own 
minds, are honorable men deserving of all praise. — David Simpson : 
Plea for Religion, p. 165. 

Meek, gentle, and humane ; acute, eloquent, and profoundly skilled 
in politics and philosophy, — take him for all and all, the qualities of 
his heart, with the abilities of his head, and you may rank Price among 
the first ornaments of his age. . . . Posterity will do him the justice 
of which the proud have robbed him, and snatch him from the calum- 
niators, to place him in the temple of personal honor, high among 
the benefactors of the human race. — Vicesimus Knox : Spirit of 
Despotism ; in Works, vol. v. p. 197. 

The religious tenets of Dr. Priestley appear to me erroneous in the 
extreme ; but I should be sorry to suffer any difference of sentiment 
to diminish my sensibility to virtue, or my admiration of genius. From 
him the poisoned arrow will fall pointless. His enlightened and active 
mind, his unwearied assiduity, the extent of his researches, the light ba 



94 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

has poured into almost every department of science, will be the admira- 
tion of that period when the greater part of those who have favored, 
or those who have opposed him, will be alike forgotten. Distinguished 
merit will ever rise superior to oppression, and will draw lustre from 
reproach. The vapors which gather round the rising sun, and follow 
it in its course, seldom fail, at the close of it, to form a magnificent 
theatre for its reception, and to invest with variegated tints, and with 

a softened effulgence, the luminary which they cannot hide 

Though I disapprove of his [Dr. Price's] religious principles, I feel no 
hesitation in affirming, in spite of the frantic and unprincipled abuse 
of Burke, that a more ardent and enlightened friend of his country 
never lived than that venerable patriarch of freedom. — It. Hall : 
Works, vol. ii. pp. 23, and 99, 100. 

Thus generously and eloquently does Robert Hall, the large-hearted 
Christian, defend the virtues and the reputation of the " Socinian " Priestley 
and the "Arian " Price. But the same Hall, as the narrow-minded Calvinist, 
in a Letter dated Feb. 5, 1816 (Works, vol. iii. p. 256), feels no hesitation in 
putting " Socinians" on a level with "professed infidels," and inferring from 
John vi. 40 and 1 John v. 12, that they will be excluded from the realms 
of heaven. Alas for some of the best and most devout of men, if superior 
virtue adorning the character in private life, and eminent endowments 
devoted to the public good, be passed by as altogether worthless in the great 
judgment-day, and nought avail but a belief in dogmas which have been 
regarded by their rejecters as dishonoring God and libelling humanity! 
May we not say, in the language of Hall himself (ii. p. 100), where he is 
vindicating his eulogy of Priestley, that " if any thing could sink Orthodoxy 
into contempt, it would be its association with such Gothic barbarity of 
sentiment " ? 

Let Dr. Priestley be confuted where he is mistaken. Let him be 
exposed where he is superficial. Let him be repressed where he is 
dogmatical. Let him be rebuked where he is censorious. But let not 
his attainments be depreciated, because they are numerous, almost 
without a parallel. Let not his talents be ridiculed, because they are 
superlatively great. Let not his morals be vilified, because they 
are correct without austerity, and exemplary without ostentation; 
because they present, even to common observers, the innocence of a 
hermit and the simplicity of a patriarch ; and because a philosophic 
eye will at once discover in them the deep-fixed root of virtuous prin- 
ciple, and the solid trunk of virtuous habit I have visited him, 

as I hope to visit him again, because he is an unaffected, unassuming, 
and very interesting companion* I will not, in consequence of oui 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 95 

different opinions, either impute to him the evil which he does not, or 
depreciate in him the good which he is allowed to do. I will not 
debase my understanding, nor prostitute my honor, by encouraging 
the clamors which have been raised against him, in vulgar minds, by 
certain persons, who would have done well to read before they wrote, 
to understand before they dogmatized, to examine before they con- 
demned. Readily do I give him up, as the bold defender of heresy 
and schism, to the well-founded objections of his antagonists ; but I 
cannot think his religion insincere, while he worships one Deity, in the 
name of one Saviour. ... I know that his virtues, in private life, are 
acknowledged by his neighbors, admired by his congregation, and 
recorded almost by the unanimous suffrage of his most powerful and 
most distinguished antagonists. — Dr. Samuel Parr : Works, vol. iii. 
pp.317; 282-4. 

In a letter to Archbishop Magee, from which we shall again take occasion 
to quote, Dr. Parr says that there were several Unitarians with whom he 
thought it an honor to be acquainted; avows u the sincere respect " which 
he felt " for their intellectual powers, their literary attainments, and their 
moral worth;" and concludes by making honorable mention of the distin- 
guished writers among the Polish Socinians, called the Fratres Poloni, and 
amongst others, of the following English Unitarians : Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, 
Dr. John Jebb, Dr. John Taylor, Theophilus Lindsey, Thomas Belsham, the 
Duke of Grafton, Newcome Cappe, Charles Berry, E. Cogan, James Yates, 
J. G. Robberds, and Dr. William Shepherd. In reference to Belsham's work 
on the Epistles of Paul, Dr. Parr, in the Bibliotheca Parriana, p. 81, says: 
" I do not entirely agree with him upon some doctrinal points ; but 1 ought to 
commend the matter, style, and spirit of the Preface ; and, in my opinion, 
the translation does great credit to the diligence, judgment, erudition, and 
piety of my much-respected friend." 

The more fervent admirers of Thomas De Quincey may place but little 
reliance on the testimony of Dr. Parr, as a Trinitarian, to the excellent 
qualities of mind and heart which he attributes to the English Unitarians ; 
for, in an Essay which we think is marked alike by its exceeding cleverness 
and its bitter partisanship, the writer says (Philosophical Writers, vol. ii. 
p. 272), that Parr " has left repeated evidence, apart from his known lean- 
ing to Socinian views, that he had not in any stage of his life adopted any 
system at all which could properly class him with the believers in the 
Trinity." But the Rev. William Field, one of his biographers, who was 
intimately acquainted with him, and who was himself a Unitarian minister, 
says (vol. ii. p. 268) that Parr declared he was not a Unitarian. Dr. John 
Johnstone, another of his biographers, states (vol. vi. p. 685) that he had 
heard Parr repeatedly declare that his notions of the Trinity were pre- 
cisely those of the profound Bishop Butler, author of the Analogy of 
Religion; in the Letter to Archbishop Magee previously referred to, Dr. 



96 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

Parr requests his Grace to do him the justice to observe, that he " meant 
not, directly or indirectly, to defend the heretical opinions adopted by any 
of the worthies whom" he had "enumerated;" and, in a note to his 
Dedication of the Warburtonian Tracts (Works, vol. iii. p. 387), he says, 
" I by no means assent to the opinions which Dr. Priestley has endeavored 
to establish in his History of the Corruptions of Christianity." (See also 
Sermon 40, in Works, vol. vi. p. 464.) 

Notwithstanding his eccentricities, his displays of vanity, his want of 
common prudence, and his political and theological antipathies, no one who 
has read the records of him published by Mr. Field and Dr. Johnstone can 
doubt, that, besides being, what he unquestionably was, a benevolent and 
pious man, a warm friend of popular education, and a bold advocate for 
Christian charity and universal toleration, he was also sincere and truthful 
in his professions. De Quincey himself, p. 293, — though he qualifies his 
praise by saying that, " in a degree which sometimes made him not a good 
man," he was " the mere football of passion," — is forced to sum up the 
appreciation of his character by the remark, that, " as a moral being, Dr. 
Parr was a good and conscientious man." May we not, therefore, reason- 
ably conclude, that, when the " conscientious " curate of Hatton affirms 
that he did not hold the leading doctrine which distinguishes Unitarians 
from their fellow-Christians, he is quite worthy of our credence? And is 
not the testimony of this distinguished Episcopalian to the intellectual, 
moral, and religious character of English Unitarians deserving of high con- 
sideration, in opposition to the attempts that have been so often made to 
take from them " the jewel of their souls," — their " good name " ? 

If ever there was a writer whose wisdom is made to be useful in 
the time of need, it is Mrs. Barbauld. No moralist has ever more 
exactly touched the point of the greatest practicable purity, without 
being lost in exaggeration, or sinking into meanness. ... It is the 
privilege of such excellent writers to command the sympathy of 
the distant and unborn. It is a delightful part of their fame ; and 
no writer is more entitled to it than Mrs. Barbauld. — Sir James 
Mackintosh: Letter to Mrs. John Taylor, Norwich; in Memoirs 
of his Life, vol. i. pp. 441-2. 

We have taken for granted that Sir James was orthodox as to the doc- 
trine of the Trinity; but, if otherwise, as some of his expressions recorded 
in the Memoirs would seem to imply, his opinion of the moral influence 
of Mrs. Barbauld's writings may not be the less just. Whatever were his 
religious views, he unquestionably combined in his character the qualities 
of philosopher, patriot, moralist, and Christian. 

I sit down to thank your Grace for your kind attention in sending 
me the " Improved Version of the New Testament." ... I give due 
praise to the Committee for their Introduction to this work : it is 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 97 

written with the sincerity becoming a Christian, and with the erudition 
becoming a translator and a commentator on so important a book. — 
Bishop Watson : Letter to the Duke of Grafton ; in Life of Watson, 
pp. 492-3. 

It is a well-known fact that Thomas Belsham was the principal editor 
of this work. Notwithstanding all that has been said of it by orthodox wri- 
ters as the representative of Unitarian interpretations, neither the version, 
which was founded on that of Archbishop Newcome, nor the notes, however 
valuable, have been regarded by Unitarians in general as an authority 
binding on them. 

My previous impre^ions of his [Dr. Lant Carpenter's] amiable and 
upright character have been strengthened by the perusal of his work 
[entitled, " An Examination of Charges against Unitarians and Uni- 
tarianism "]. His candor, integrity, and good temper, besides his 
intellectual ability, give to his writings an immense advantage over the 
imbecile arrogance, the rash crudities, and the still more dishonorable 
artifices, of some persons on whom he has felt himself called- to ani- 
madvert. — John Pye Smith : Scripture Testimony, vol. ii. p. 476, 
fourth edition. 

Dr. Smith's concluding remarks evidently refer, in particular, to Arch- 
bishop Magee, whose Postscript to his work on the Atonement is dishonorably 
distinguished by the foulest injustice to the character and talents of English 
Unitarians. 

When we see a fellow-man and fellow-sinneri whose character is 
adorned, not only with blameless morals and with those honorable 
decencies of life to which the world pays homage, but with untiring 
activity in excellent deeds, warm-hearted beneficence, exemplary virtue 
in all the walks of life, and the clearest evidence, to those who possess 
full and close opportunities for the observation, of constant " walking 
with God," not in the solemnities of public worship only, but in the 
family and the most retired privacy ; and when this habit of life has 
been sustained, with unaffected simplicity and uncompromising con- 
stancy, during a life long, active, and exposed to searching observation ; 
— when such a character is presented to our view, it would warrant 
the suspicion of an obtuse understanding, or, what is worse, a cold 
heart, not to resemble Barnabas, " who, when he came and saw the 
grace of God, was glad ; for he was a good man, and full of the Holy 
Spirit and of faith." . . . We have been led almost unavoidably into 
this train of reflections, by opening the volume before us [" Sermons 
on Practical Subjects, by the late Lant Carpenter, LL.D."], and under 

9 



98 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

the influence of high personal regard to its author. In that feeling 
we only participate with many both of orthodox Dissenters and the 
evangelical members of the Establishment. It was scarcely possible 
for an upright person to know Dr. Carpenter, and not to love and 
venerate him. — Eclectic Review for June, 1841 ; new series, vol. ix. 
pp. 669-70. 

In the same Review for February, 1843 (vol. xiii. pp. 205-19), may be 
seen an article occasioned by the publication of the " Memoirs of the Life 
of Dr. Carpenter." It is written in a liberal and Christian spirit; and, 
though widely differing from Carpenter in the religious opinions which he 
held, the author expresses the warmest reverencagfor the character of that 
excellent man. 

When the day comes when honor will be done to whom honor if 
due, he [Dr. Guthrie] can fancy the crowd of those whose fame poet* 
have sung, and to whose memory monuments have been raised, divid* 
ing like a wave ; and, passing the great and the noble and the mighty 
of the land, this poor, obscure old man stepping forward, and receiving 
the especial notice of Him who said, " Inasmuch as ye did it to one 
of the least of these, ye did it also to me." — Extract from Speech 
delivered by the Rev. Dr. Guthrie, at Edinburgh, February, 1855 j 
apud London Inquirer. 

Dr. Guthrie, who is one of the influential ministers of the Free Church 
of Scotland, refers to the late John Pounds, the Portsmouth cobbler, of 
philanthropic celebrity. This most worthy man, this friend of destitute and 
ignorant children, is known in England to have held Unitarian views. 

The late Mr. Buckminster, of Boston, . . . was one of the most 
accomplished scholars of his age. — Dr. Gardiner Spring : First 
Things, vol. ii. p. 357. 

Dr. Channing was, notwithstanding the errors of his theological 
opinions, a beautiful specimen of a man, — warm, serious, philanthropic, 
calm, self-controlled, earnest, and often enthusiastic. With a refined 
taste, a love of letters, and a noble independence of mind, he joined a 
cultivated understanding, an effective style, and an admirable elo- 
quence. — Christian Review for June, 1848; vol. xiii. p. 305. 

William Ellery Channing was what all orthodox believers will admit 
to be much better [than a Socinian] : he was an Arian, and a very high 
one ; but, more than this, he was a man of purest sincerity, of pro- 
found humility, and universal charity. Channing must, in fact, be 
admitted to have been either a saint or a hypocrite ; and the man who, 
after a personal acquaintance with him, or the reading of his works 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH 99 

and biography, is prepared to say he was a hypocrite, may be assured 
that he is not much unfitted to be one himself. — Abel Stevens, in 
Methodist Quarterly Review for January, 1849. 

Whatever kind of Arianism Charming may have professed to hold, we 
are inclined to believe, that, though he did not sympathize either with the 
religious tenets of Socinus or with the philosophic speculations of Priestley 
and Belsham, his writings in general are pervaded by the doctrine, — which 
appears to be less esteemed than formerly by American Unitarians, but 
which, whether true or not, is consistent with the loftiest conceptions of the 
mission and character of Christ, — that our Lord was, while on earth, what- 
ever he may have previously been in heaven, a human being, not merely in 
the properties of his body, but in the faculties and affections of his soul. 
Instead of saying that Channing was either an Arian or a Socinian, it would 
be perhaps more correct to speak of him simply as a Unitarian Christian. 
This remark is made only by way of correcting what we think to be a 
mistake, which does not lessen the value or truth of the eulogium paid by 
the writer to the purity and liberality of Channing's character. 

We have no sympathy with the distinguishing elements of his 
creed [the creed of Henry Ware, jun.] ; we believe it to be unscrip- 
tural ; yet, when we see constantly appearing his self-condemnation, 
his sense of unworthiness, his reverence of God, his efforts to do good 
to men's souls, his submission to the most painful allotments of 
Providence, his calmness and joy in the prospect of death, following 
an unusually spotless and serious life, we cannot find it in our heart to 
condemn him " because he followeth not with us." — Christian Review 
for May, 1846 ; vol. xi. p. 148. 

A true, faithful daughter, wife, mother, friend ; with no eccentrici- 
ties, no extravagances, no marvellous qualities of head or hand ; but 
with an honest truthfulness of nature, a willing spirit of self-sacrifice, 
and an ever-loving heart, — such was Mary L. Ware. ... It is by 
such women that woman's rights are best vindicated by the steadfast 
performance of women's duties. Mrs. Ware's religious life was pure 
and unspotted ; and, had she lived in a warmer atmosphere of Christian 
feeling, she would have been a model, besides, of Christian experience. 
— Methodist Quarterly Review for July, 1853; fourth series, vol. v. 
p. 314. 

Xo translation has appeared in England, since that of Isaiah by 
Lowth, which can sustain a reputable comparison with that of the book 
of Job by Mr. Noyes. With some slight exceptions, this latter is 
very much what we could wish it to be. — Spirit of the Pilgrims for 
Fibruary, 1829; voL ii. p. 93. 






100 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

The volume which bears the title given above [" The Evidences of 
the Genuineness of the Gospels, by Andrews Norton ; vol. 1 ; Boston, 
183-7 "] is certainly a production of no ordinary stamp, and is a pheno- 
menon in our literary hemisphere which ought to excite much interest 
. . . Mr. Norton has cleared himself most explicitly and fully from the 
charge that has sometimes been made against him, viz., that he is a 
Naturalist, or a so-called Rationalist of the lowest order. That the 
Saviour is a teacher from God, and endued with miraculous powers, is 
what he openly declares himself to believe. — Moses Stuart, in 
Biblical Repository for April, 1838; vol. xi. pp. 265, 287. 

Professor Norton's work [on the Genuineness of the Gospels] . . . 
is highly honorable to the writer's learning and diligence ; and, as the 
American edition was dear and very scarce, we are not surprised that 
it should be republished in London. [After expressing his dissatis- 
faction with Mr. Norton's views respecting the books of the Old 
Testament, the reviewer proceeds :] It is but justice to the author to 
say, at the same time, that some of his suggestions are worthy of 
consideration ; proceeding, as they apparently do, from a mind of inde- 
pendent habits, richly furnished, and patient in the pursuit of truth. 
It is our notion that the cause of Orthodoxy will be better served 
by calmly examining what he says, than by hastily denouncing him 
as an unbeliever. — Eclectic Review for April, 1845; new series, 
vol. xxiii. pp. 437-9. 

§ 2. Unitarians in General. 

Socinus and his followers, being great masters of reason, and deeply 
learned in matters of morality, mingle almost all religion with it, and 
form religion purely to the model and platform of it — Sir Matthew 
Hale : A Discourse of Religion, p. 27. 

They [the Perfectionists] live strictly, and in many things speak 
rationally, and in some things very confidently. They excel the 
Socinians in the strictness of their doctrine, but, in my opinion, fall 
extremely short of them in their expositions of the practical Scrip- 
ture. — Jeremy Taylor : Letter to Evelyn ; Works, vol. i. p. lxxxv. 

Yet to do right to the writers on that [the Socinian] side, I must 
own, that generally they are a pattern of the fair way of disputing, 
and of debating matters of religion without heat and unseemly reflec- 
tions upon their adversaries. . . . They generally argue matters with 
that temper and gravity, and with that freedom from passion and 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 101 

transport, which becomes a serious and weighty argument , and, foi 
the most part, they reason closely and clearly, with extraordinary 
guard and caution, with great dexterity and decency, and yet with 
smartness and subtilty enough ; with a very gentle heat and few hard 
words, — virtues to be praised wherever they are found, yea, even in 
an enemy, and very worthy our imitation. In a word, they are the 
strongest managers of a weak cause, and which is ill founded at 
the bottom, that perhaps ever yet meddled with controversy ; inso- 
much that some of the Protestants and the generality of the Popish 
writers, and even of the Jesuits themselves, who pretend to all the 
reason and subtilty in the world, are, in comparison of them, but mere 
scolds and bunglers. — Archbishop Tillotson : Sermon 44 ; in 
Works, vol. hi. pp. 197-8. 

I must also do this right to the Unitarians as to own, that their 
rules in morality are exact and severe ; that they are generally men 
of probity, justice, and charity, and seem to be very much in earnest 
in pressing the obligations to very high degrees in virtue. — Bishop 
Burnet, as quoted by Adam, in Relig. World Displayed, vol. ii. p. 173. 

See also Life of Burnet, by his son, prefixed to the " History of His Own 
Time," vol. i. p. xi. In the passage here referred to, his biographer says 
that in 1664 the Bishop went to Holland, and became acquainted with the 
leading Dutch Arminians, Lutherans, Unitarians, &c. ; " amongst each of 
whom, he used frequently to declare, he had met with men of such real 
piety and virtue " that he became fixed in his principle of universal charity. 

In stating and describing the duties of men, they [the Polish 
Socinians] were obliged to be uncommonly rigorous, because they 
maintained that the object for which God sent Jesus Christ into the 
world was to promulgate a most perfect law. . . . Here also we 
unexpectedly meet with this singularity, that, while on other subjects 
they boldly offer the greatest violence to the language of the sacred 
writers in order to obtain support for their doctrines, they require that 
whatever is found in the Scriptures relating to the life and to morals 
should be understood and construed in the most simple and literal 
manner. — J. L. Mosheim : Ecclesiastical History, book iv. cent. xvi. 
sect. 3, part 2, chap. 4, § 18. 

In the honest exercise of the reasoning powers with which God endowed 
them, the Polish Unitarians, so "uncommonly rigorous" in the inculcation 
and practice of the moral duties of the gospel, came to a different conclusion 
in religious matters from other Protestant churches; and therefore they 
" boldly offered the greatest violence to the /anguage of the sacred writers." 



102 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED ifOR 

With regard to their moral code, the principles of the Unitarians 
do not seem to admit their loosening, in the least, the bonds of duty : 
on the contrary, they appear to be actuated by an earnest desire to 
promote practical religion. . . . Love is, with them, the fulfilling of the 
law ; and the habitual practice of virtue, from a principle of love to God 
and benevolence to man, is, in their judgment, " the sum and substance 
of Christianity." — Robert Adam : Religious World Displayed, art, 
" Unitarians," vol. ii. p. 173. 

Extract from a Letter to Archbishop Magee, — With surprise and 
with concern, I observed that in one of them [one of the Charges] 
your Grace has spoken sweepingly of the Unitarians as illiterate. The 
expression, my Lord, astonished me. ... In a dispute which, about 
one hundred and fifty years ago, was carried on with great violence, 
Bishop Wettenhal wrote a very judicious, candid, and conciliatory 
pamphlet, which I found in a huge mass of controversial writings, in 
which he describes the Socinians as active, as zealous, as acute, as 
dexterous in disputation, as blameless in the general tenor of their 
lives, and, he adds, even pious, with exception to their own peculiar 
tenets. Every man of common sense, my Lord, will perceive that the 
qualifying words are the result of discretion and episcopal decorum, and 
were intended probably for a kind of sop to soften the Cerberean part 
of the priesthood. Be this as it may, the representation which Bishop 
Wettenhal gave of his Socinian contemporaries corresponds nearly 

with my own observations upon my own Unitarian contemporaries 

Extract from a Letter to the Dissenters of Birmingham. — Though he 
[Dr. Parr, speaking of himself] does not profess himself an advocate 
of many of your tenets [the tenets held by the Birmingham Unitarians], 
he can with sincerity declare himself not an enemy to your persons. 
He knows only few among you, but he thinks well of many. He 
respects you for temperance and decency in private life ; for diligence 
in your employments, and punctuality in your engagements ; for 
economy without parsimony, and liberality without profusion ; for the 
readiness you show to relieve distress and to encourage merit, with 
little or no distinction of party ; for the knowledge which many of you 
have acquired by the dedication of your leisure hours to intellectual 
improvement, and for the regularity with which most of you are said 
to attend religious worship. As to some late deplorable events, he 
believes that you have been misrepresented : he knows that you have 
been wronged. — Dr. Samuel Parr : Works, vol. i. pp. 672-3 ; and 
vol iii. p. 306. 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 103 

The Unitarian teachers by no means profess to absolve their follow- 
ers from the unbending strictness of Christian morality. They prescribe 
the predominant love of God, and an habitual spirit of devotion. — 
Wm. Wilberforce : Practical View of the Prevailing Religious 
Systems, chap. vii. sect. 3. 

So far, well. " But," this distinguished philanthropist adds, " it is an 
unquestionable fact, . . . that this class of religionists is not in general dis- 
tinguished for superior purity of life, and still less for that frame of mind 
■which . . . the word of God prescribes to us as one of the surest tests of our 
experiencing the vital power of Christianity. On the contrary, in point 
of fact, Unitarianism seems to be resorted to, not merely by those who are 
disgusted with the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, but by those also who 
are seeking a refuge from the strictness of her practical precepts," &c. 
How easily, by adopting the same principles of reasoning, might Deists 
prove Christianity in general to be answerable for all the vices of her pro- 
fessed adherents! The sweeping charges, however, made here against the 
moral and religious character of Unitarians are refuted by the more candid 
statements of other opponents, quoted in our pages. 

I cannot conclude without expressing the conviction, that much con- 
sideration is due, both of respect and of affectionate concern, to those 
who hold the sentiments w T hich in these pages have been opposed. 
To the great talents and labors of many of them, the Christian world 
is under eminent obligations for some of the most valuable works on 
the evidences of revealed religion, and for their services to the cause 
of religious liberty and the rights of conscience. — Dr. John Pye 
Smith : Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. ii. p. 424. 

In their [the Unitarian] body, I number many of the friends of my 
early days ; and the recollection of the intercourse of the past is even 
now delightful : — men who dignify and adorn the stations which they 
occupy in society ; some of whom will leave their names to posterity, 
identified with the improvements of science, the cultivation of the arts 
which embellish human life, and the grand schemes of philanthropy 
by which the present condition of man is elevated and purified, have I 
had the honor of numbering among my friends. — Dr. Thomas 
Byrth : Lecture on Unitarian Interpretation ; in Liverpool Contro- 
versy, p. 159. 

There can be no doubt, that, by the existing law, the sect of Uni- 
tarians is entitled to the fullest measure of toleration ; and it would be 
absurd to hold, that there was any thing to corrupt virtue, or outrage 
decency, in tenets which have been advocated in our own days by men 
of such eminent talents, exemplary piety, and pure lives, as Price* 



104 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

Priestley, and Channing, and to which there is reason to think neither 
Milton nor Newton was disinclined. — Lord Jeffrey ; apud Chris* 
tian Reformer j new series, vol. vi. p. 194. 

At least three quarters of my time have been spent among writers 
of the Unitarian class, from whom I have received, with gratitude, 
much instruction relative to the philology, the exegesis, and the lite- 
rary history of the Scriptures. — Moses Stuart: Answer to Chan- 
ning, Let. iii. 

This passage does not appear in the last edition of Stuart's Letters, 
published 1846, in a volume of his writings entitled " Miscellanies." 

Many of the teachers of this [the Unitarian] heresy are thoroughly 
skilled in scholastic theology, logic, and metaphysics ; in history, 
antiquities, philology, and modern science ; well versed in the ancient 
languages ; bold and subtle biblical critics ; prepared to take advan- 
tage of an imprudent or incautious adversary ; and thus to triumph 
over truth itself in the eyes of superficial observers, when their 
sophistry seems to get the victory over its unskilful defender. — 
Philip Lindsly : A Plea for the TheoL Seminary at Princeton, N. J., 
pp. 28-9, third edition; Trenton, 1821. 

Professor Lindsly prefaces these remarks, — which, despite of the lattet 
portion, will be seen to be highly laudatory, — by saying that "Modern 
Unitarianism is exactly suited to the natural character of men," to the 
depravity of their hearts, and " is more to be dreaded than any species of 
infidelity ever yet avowed." That is to say, a religion which teaches that 
" as a man soweth, so shall he reap," — which, in the name of the great 
Messenger of Heaven, assures us that we are responsible to God for every 
thought we think, every feeling we cherish, every word we utter, every act 
we perform, — " is more to be dreaded" than the infidelity which disowns 
the God of nature and revelation, which ignores alike the gospel of Christ 
and the dictates of conscience, and which therefore makes no distinction 
between virtue and vice. The heretical teachers, however, whose belief in 
God and Christ, heaven and hell, is worse than any species of infidelity, are 
" many of them," the writer in a note kindly says, " no doubt sincere in 
their profession " of Christianity. 

The defect of the liberal [the Unitarian] school is r that their religion 
is not moral. We mean not strongly and distinctively so. We know 
that none insist more earnestly than they on a good life, and on 
the vanity of all religious pretension without it. . . . We give them the 
highest praise for the estimate in which they hold the graceful ameni- 
ties and the sweeter charities of social intercourse. We give them 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 105 

the highest praise for insisting on kindness to all, as the only spirit 
which a Christian should cherish ; courtesy, as the only external 
robe which he should wear ; and good works, as the only results that 
should follow in the path in w r hich he treads. "We admire the high 
spirit of honor, the delicate sense of propriety, the stern commercial 
integrity, w r hich are fostered and exhibited by so man) who are trained 
under the influences of liberal Christianity. The intellectual spirit, 
the elevation above the vulgar gentility of mere wealth, which are 
diffused through many — not all — of its social circles ; the truthful- 
ness to nature, in manners and in taste; the high appreciation of 
intellectual and moral institutions ; the public spirit which so lavishly 
provides for them ; and, above all, the strict and careful conscientious- 
ness wilich trains and moulds many an esteemed and honored friend, 
— are virtues of no mean value, and are not the chance growth of 
nature. They show culture, — intellectual, social, moral, — of the 

highest order. But these in themselves are not religion We 

cannot think of them as inheriting and upholding so many of the 
religious and social institutions founded by their and our honored sires 
of the Pilgrim stock, without caring for them for the fathers' sake. 
We honor, for its own, a religious community that embraces so much 
that is noble in cultivated intellect ; so much that is high and honor- 
able in its noble spirit ; so much that is enlarged and generous in its 
social feelings. But, &c. — New Englander for October, 1844 j vol. ii. 
pp. 537, 539, 558. 

In all ages, ever since the days of Celestius, Julian, and Pelagius, 
there have been, in large numbers, men highly estimable for intelli- 
gence and benevolence, and animated by a strong desire of urging 
society onward in the pursuit of moral excellence, who have, never- 
theless, earnestly, perseveringly, and with deep emotion, opposed this 
system [the peculiar characteristic of which is the doctrine of a super- 
natural regeneration rendered necessary by the native and original 
depravity of man], as at w T ar with the fundamental principles of honor 
and right, and hostile to the best interests of humanity. — Dr. 
Edward Beecher : Conflict of Ages, p. 3. 

In this paragraph, Dr. Beecher refers particularly to Unitarians ; and 
afterwards, when quoting from some of their writers, he speaks of Judge 
Story as •' that great luminary of American jurisprudence;" of Channing 
as a hl distinguished philanthropist; " and of " other eminent men " belonging 
to this denomination of Christians, such as Dr. John Taylor, Ware, Sparks, 
Norton, Dewey, Burnap, and E. H. Sears. Their opposition to Augustinian 
and Calvinistic theology he does not, as many of his orthodox brethren, 



106 UNITARIANS DISTINGUISHED FOR 

attribute to the depravity of man's heart, to human pride, carnal reason, 
or hatred to the truth, but, while dissenting from their views, candidly owns 
that " they were actuated by noble and sublime principles," and that " the 
existence of the Unitarian body is a providential protest in favor of the great 
principles of honor and right," on the part of God, towards the descendants 
of Adam. One of the great excellences of Dr. Beecher's remarkable and 
paradoxical work is, that he avoids the dogmatizing and illiberal tone which 
is so common among controversialists, and throughout it demeans himself, 
not only as a scholar, but as a gentleman and a Christian. 

* You [Unitarians] are, I am aware, benevolent men, a great many 
of you eager for sanitary, social, political reformation. In so far as 
you feel — and I am sure many of you do feel — a sincere, fervent 
admiration and love for the character of Jesus Christ, in so far as you 
believe him to be the wisest, holiest, most benignant Teacher the 
world ever had, are not you in danger of setting a man above God ? 
.... In the sad hours of your life, the recollection of that Man you 
read of in your childhood, the Man of sorrows, the great sympathizer 
with human woes and sufferings, rises up before you, I know : it has a 
reality for you, then ; you feel it to be not only beautiful, but true. . . . 
While we are frivolous, exclusive, heartless, no arguments ought to 
convince us of Christ's incarnation : they would carry their own con- 
demnation with them, if they did. When we are aroused to think 
earnestly what we are, what our relation to our fellow-men is, what 
God is, — the voice which says, " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us," " The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy 
the works of the devil," will no more be thought of as the voice of an 
apostle. We shall know that he is speaking to us himself, and that 
he is the Christ that should come into the world. — Let no Unitarian 
suppose that these last words are pointed at him ; that I suppose he 
has greater need of repentance than we have, because some special 
moral obliquity has prevented him from recognizing the truth of the 
incarnation. I had no such meaning. I was thinking much more of 
the orthodox. I was considering how many causes hinder us from 
confessing with our hearts as well as our lips, that Christ has come 
in the flesh. The conceit of our Orthodoxy is one cause. What- 
ever sets us in any wise above our fellow-men is an obstacle to a 
hearty belief in the Man : it must be taken from us before we shall 
really bow our knees to him. I know not that, if he were now walk- 
ing visibly among us, he might not say that many a Unitarian was far 
nearer the kingdom of heaven than many of us ; less choked with 
prejudice, less self-confident, more capable of recognizing the great 



THEIR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL WORTH. 107 

helper of the wounded man who has fallen among thieves, than we 
priests or Levites are, because more ready to go and do likewise. 
I cannot say that tin's might not be so ; I often suspect that it would 
be so ; and therefore I certainly did not intend to convey the impres- 
sion that the moral disease at the root of their most vehement 
intellectual denials is necessarily a malignant one. ... I am nearly sure 
that many Unitarians would sooner die than give up the act of prayer, 
and that they believe it not to be the falsest, but the truest, of all acts j 
that which is necessary to make them sincere, and keep them sincere, 
I do not doubt that the greater part of Unitarians, even those who 
retain Dr. Priestley's dogma of Necessity in their speculative creed, 
contrive to separate the idea of Him they call Father from that 
Necessity. They confess a Will : they do not worship a mere God 
of nature ; and they can believe, that this Will may govern them in 
some different way from that in which he governs the trees and 
flowers and streams. — F. D. Maurice: Theological Essays, pp. 11, 
71-2, 88-9, 329; New York edition. 



Additional testimonies to the high moral and intellectual character of 
Unitarians might have been introduced into this section; and some of these 
would have brought into notice other honored names, not yet mentioned. 
But the extracts which have been made are enough for our present purpose ; 
which is to show, — without, we trust, a spirit of pride or of pharisaic boast- 
ing, — that Unitarianism numbers among its adherents some of the best 
and wisest of men that have ever lived; that, though frequently branded as 
blasphemers of the Saviour, the believers in the simple oneness of God have 
not been undistinguished, either as individuals or as a church, for their 
moral worth and sincere piety; that, though, in common with other classes 
of Dissenters in England, excluded from the highest seats of learning in that 
country, and sometimes spoken of in the United States and elsewhere as the 
merest sciolists, they have manifested, in the productions of their pen, no 
gross deficiency in either classical or scriptural knowledge; and that, though 
small in numbers as compared with the professors of orthodox views, they 
have in some instances displayed a philosophic skill and a poetical power 
which will for ever associate their names with those of the gifted few who 
have pre-eminently stood out as the improvers and leaders of a world'a 
intellect, — the benefactors of their race. These testimonies are cited 
merely to prove, that, as respects the character and the attainments of 
Antitrinitarkms, there is nothing which, judging d priori, should prevent 
an investigation into the evidence presented in favor of the opinions which 
they profess, and which many of them have adorned by their lives, and 
recommended in their writings. Similar observations will apply even with 
greater force to the extracts made in the following section. 



108 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME 



SECT. IX. — UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 

A. — I honor and admire Caius for his great learning. 

B. — The knowledge of the Sanscrit is an important article in Caius's learning. 

A. — I have been often in his company, and have found no reason for belie* 
ing this. 

B. — Oh! then you deny his learning, are envious, and Caius's enemy. 

A. — God forbid! I love and admire him. I know him for a transcendent linguist 
in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and modern European languages ; and, with or without 
the Sanscrit, I look up to him, and rely on his erudition in all cases in which I am 
concerned. And it is this perfect trust, this unfeigned respect, that is the appointed 
criterion of Caius's friends and disciples, and not their full acquaintance with each 
and all particulars of his superiority. S. T. Coleridge. 

There is another thing which . . . my censurer, and others such as 
he, generally stand by ; to wit, if a person be any thing ingenious, or 
more learned than ordinary, and writes out of the common road, he is 
presently a Socinian ; as if all men of sense must needs turn Socinians. 
... If he will say that Socinus was mistaken in a great many things, 
I fully agree with him ; but I can reckon up a great many worse errors 
than his, whereof I shall mention but one, out of respect to my cen- 
surer j that is, of those who think men deserve eternal torments, whom 
Christ never condemned; who by all means persecute those that 
differ from them, though they own themselves to be as liable to error 
as the very men whom they persecute ; who, in a word, think they 
may, upon very slight suspicions, traduce men that are heartily devoted 
to Christianity, and sober in their lives, as a kind of plagues to be 
carefully shunned. He that does not ascribe to Christ what he thinks 
Christ never assumed to himself, if otherwise he perform constant 
obedience to all his precepts which he fully understands, may obtain 
the forgiveness of his ignorance from a most favorable and compas- 
sionate Judge ; but he that breaks the command of loving his neighbor, 
which is as clear as the sun at noon-day, by slandering and bitterness 
and cruelty, and dies in those vices, shall never, unless a new gospel be 
made for him, be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. — Le Clerc : 
Preface to his Supplement to Hammond ; as quoted in the Unitarian 
Miscellany for February, 1823. 

It will appear that the several denominations of Christians agree 
both in the substance of religion, and in the necessary enforcements 
of the practice of it; that the world and all. things were created by 
God. and are under the direction and government of his all-powerfui 



UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 109 

hand and all-seeing eye ; that there is an essential difference between 
good and evil, virtue and vice ; that there will be a state of future 
rewards and punishments, according to our behavior in this life ; 
that Christ was a teacher sent from God, and that his apostles were 
divinely inspired ; that all Christians are bound to declare and profess 
themselves to be his disciples ; that not only the exercise of the several 
virtues, but also a belief in Christ, is necessary in order to their obtain- 
ing the pardon of sin, the favor of God, and eternal life; that the 
worship of God is to be performed chiefly by the heart, in prayers, 
praises, and thanksgiving ; and, as to all other points, that they are 
bound to live by the rules which Christ and his apostles have left them 
in the Holy Scriptures. Here, then, is a fixed, certain, and uniform 
rule of faith and practice, containing all the most necessary points 
of religion established by a divine sanction, embraced as such by all 
denominations of Christians, and in itself abundantly sufficient to pre- 
serve the knowledge and practice of religion in the world. — Bishop 
Gibson : Second Pastoral Letter, pp. 20-1. 

Unitarians acknowledge the truth of these primary principles, and are 
therefore entitled to the appellation of Christians. 

Once I remember some narrow-minded people of his [Dr. Dod- 
dridge's] congregation gave him no small trouble on account of a 
gentleman in communion with the church, who was a professed Arian, 
and who otherwise departed from the common standard of orthodoxy. 
This gentleman they wished either to be excluded from the ordinance 
of the Lord's Supper, or to have his attendance upon it prevented ; but 
the doctor declared, that he would sacrifice his place, and even his life, 
rather than fix any such mark of discouragement upon one who, what- 
ever his doctrinal sentiments were, appeared to be a real Christian. — 
Dr. Kippis, in Biographia Britannica, vol. v. p. 307. 

Some of the Unitarian doctrines do, indeed, appear to many of us 
extremely unscriptural ; and yet it must be acknowledged, however 
wide of the truth these doctrines may be, there is a very great and 
essential difference between them and Deism. . . . However mistaken 
these people may be, yet, while they continue to own Jesus Christ as 
their Lord and Saviour, support his cause in general as the cause of 
truth, and lead pious and virtuous lives, we should not deny them the 
honor of the Christian name, rank them among absolute infidels, and 
consign them to eternal perdition, as too many do. They have still a 
right to a place in our fraternal affection j and we should pity and uray 

10 



110 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAM! 

for them, and by all rational means endeavor to reclaim them, but 
by no means revile and persecute them, or even hurt a hair of their 
heads. — D. Turner, of Abingdon : Free Thoughts on Free Inquiry 
in Religion ; apud Field's Letters, p. 67. 

We and the Socinians are said to differ ; but about what ? Not 
about morality or natural religion, or the divine authority of the 
Christian religion : we differ only about what we do not understand, 
and about what is to be done on the part of God. ... A heathen 
Socrates, I think, would be surprised at those who agreed in so many 
things requiring declarations and subscriptions, in order to exclude 

one another And my difficulty is increased, when I find that 

making this declaration [respecting the doctrine of the Trinity] sepa- 
rates me from Christians whom I must acknowledge to be rational and 
well informed ; from those who have studied some parts of Scripture 
with singular success. — Dr. John Hey : . Lectures in Divinity, vol. ii. 
pp. 41, 249. 

I never attempted either to encourage or discourage his [the Duke 
of Grafton's] profession of Unitarian principles ; for I was happy to see 
a person of his rank professing, with intelligence and with sincerity, 
Christian principles. If any one thinks that an Unitarian is not 
a Christian, I plainly say, without being myself an Unitarian, that I 

think otherwise The Christian religion is wholly comprised 

in the New Testament ; but men have interpreted that book in various 
ways, and hence have sprung up a great variety of Christian churches. 
I scruple not giving the name of Christian churches to assemblies of 
men uniting together for public worship, though they may differ 
somewhat from each other in doctrine and in discipline ; whilst they 
all agree in the fundamental principle of the Christian religion, that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Saviour of the world. In this the Greek, the 
Latin, and all the reformed churches have one and the same faith. — 
Bishop Watson : Life, pp. 47, and 412-13. 

Oh that I could prevail on Christians to melt down, under the 
warm influence of brotherly love, all the distinctions of Methodists, 
Independents, Baptists, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, Arians, Unitarians, 
in the glorious name of Christians ; men of large, generous, benevolent 
minds, above disputing for trifles ; men who love one another as men, 
sons of the same Almighty Parent, heirs of the same salvation by 
Jesus Christ ! Let us throw away our petty badges of distinction ; 
distinction, where, in fact, there is no difference; and let us walk 
together, hand in hand, into the church, up to the altar, and give and 



UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. Ill 

forgive, and love one another, and live in unity in this world, the few 
years poor mortals have to live, that we may meet in love, never again 
to be divided, in heaven ; where will no more be found the narrow, 
dark, cold, wretched prejudices of little sectaries, cavilling at each 
other, stinging their opponents, venting the virulence of their temper 
in defence of a religion that forbids, above every thing, all rancor, all 
malice, all evil-thinking, and all evil-speaking. — % Vicesimus Knox : 
Sermons ; in Works, vol. vi. p. 50. 

With no ordinary pleasure have we made this extract from Dr. Knox. 
It is fraught with "thoughts that breathe" a spirit of divine love, — with 
"words that burn" with all the fire of a catholic Christianity. These 
sentiments will not be deemed the less effective because they come from one 
who did not regard all opinions as of equal or of trifling importance, but who 
was a devoted admirer of the doctrines of the church of England, and who, as 
"a believer in the doctrine of the Trinity," lamented that Unitarians should, 
as he expresses it, " zealously lower our Saviour in the opinion of his follow- 
ers." See Preface to his Sermons as published in 1792. pp. vi. and vii. 

I am no Socinian, I am no Arian, whatever the malice of others 
may have suggested, or your own suspicions allowed. And while I 
love Jebb as a man, while I defend him as a scholar, while I will assist 
him if injured, and vote for him if attacked, I can yet distinguish 
between him and his principles, between the license of ambition or 
novelty and the honest zeal of the well-meaning Christian. — William 
Bexnet (before he became Bishop of Cloyne), in Letter to Dr. Parr, 
dated Sept 18, 1770 ; apud Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 77. 

Though many of us differ from you [Dr. Priestley] in matters of 
religious faith, we trust that we have better learned the spirit of our 
excellent religion than not to esteem in you that character of piety and 
virtue which is the best fruit of every faith, and that ardor for truth 
and manly inquiry which Christianity invites, and which no form of 
Christianity ought to shrink from ; as well as to admire those eminent 
abilities and that unwearied perseverance which give activity to the 
virtues of your heart, and to which, in almost every walk of science, your 
country and the world have been so much indebted. . . . Though 
your enemies have attacked you in that way wherein you feel perhaps 
most sensibly, yet we rejoice to find in you that decent magnanimity, 
that Christian bearing, which raises you superior to suffering ; and that 
a regard to God, to truth, and to another world, have even from the 
bosom of affliction enabled you to extract a generous consolation. 
Whether in your religious inquiries you have erred or no, we firmly 



112 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 

believe that truth and the best interests of mankind have been the 
object of your constant regard; and we trust that that God who loves 
an honest and well-meaning heart will dispense to you such protection 
as to his wisdom may seem most fit. To his benevolent and fatherly 
protection we devoutly recommend you through the remainder of your 
life ; praying that you may be long preserved, that you may survive 
the hatred of your*ungrateful country, and that you may repay her 
cruel injuries, by adding, as you have hitherto done, to her treasure 
c£ science, of virtue, and of piety. — Extract from Address to the 
Rev. Dr. Priestley; apud Yates's Vindication. 

This address was presented to Dr. Priestley by forty-three ministers of 
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, of the Presbyterian, Independent, and 
Baptist persuasions, soon after the Birmingham riots in 1791, when the 
valuable property of that good and great man was destroyed, and his life 
endangered, by the outrages of a fanatical mob. 

[l.J I shall ever think and ever speak of Mr. Wakefield as a very 
profound scholar, as a most honest man, and as a Christian who united 
knowledge with zeal, piety with benevolence, and the deep simplicity 

of a child with the fortitude of a martyr [2.] He [Dr. James 

Lindsay] had fine talents ; he had a good store of ancient learning ; 
and of modern literature his knowledge was various, extended, and 
well digested. Then, as to his moral qualities, there, we can scarcely 
say too much. He was pure in heart, social in temper, benevolent in 
spirit, most upright in conduct. Some would say there was a stern- 
ness about his integrity ; and a vehemence, almost passionate, in urging 
the right and opposing the wrong, as it appeared to him, in sentiment 
or action. But, in reality, there was all the sweetness, as well as all 
the fairness, of candor. In debate, if he was sometimes warm, he was 
never overbearing ; if there was pressing earnestness, there was no 
discourtesy in his manner. As a patriot and a philanthropist, the love 
of his country and of his kind was in him a glowing passion, as well 
as a steady principle. As a Christian and a preacher, religion was in 
him a subject of ardent feeling, as well as of honest profession ; and, 
though destitute of the graces of elocution, yet he possessed, in no 
inferior degree, all the eloquence which sincere conviction, vivid con- 
ceptions, strong emotions, and great command of language, can supply. 

[3.] Extract from Letter to Archbishop Magee. — And now, 

my Lord, we are come to a point, upon which unreservedly I shall 
state to you my disapprobation of some passages in your Charges. It 
pained me exceedingly to find that your Grace adopted the invidious, 



[JNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 113 

and, I must say fairly, the uncharitable language of those persons who 
maintain that Socinians are not Christians. . . . Undisguisedly and 
indignantly, I shall ever bear testimony against the uncharitable spirit 
which excludes the followers of Socinus utterly from the catholic 
church of Christ. . . . Without professing any partiality for Unitarians, 
I hold that they who acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the promised 
Messiah, to have had a direct and special commission from the 
Almighty, to have been endowed supernaturally with the Holy Spirit, 
to have worked miracles, to have suffered on the cross, and on the 
third day to have risen from the dead, — yes, my Lord, I hold that 
men, thus believing, have a sacred claim to be called Christians. — 
Dr. Samuel Parr, 

The quotations marked [1] and [3J are from Parr's Works, vol. i. p. 402, 
and vol. vii. pp. 8-10; that marked [2] is from Field's Memoirs of Parr, 
vol. ii. p. 283. 

Having always considered the favorable opinion of wise and good 
men as the best reward which, on this side of the grave, an honest 
individual can receive for doing what he deems to be his duty on all 
occasions, I cannot but be highly gratified by the approbation of so 
respectable a body of my fellow-Christians as those are, an address from 
whom has been this moment read to me. I am most certainly a very 
sincere, though a very humble, friend to the cause of religious liberty, 
and have uniformly been so from the first moment I was capable of 
distinguishing " quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non." 
• . . Revelation, I am sure, confirms this voice [of reason], . . . when it 
warmly expostulates with those who are fond of interfering in matters 
of conscience. . . . Let us, then, be content to leave our fellow-Christians 
to stand or fall by the judgment of our common Lord and Master, to 
whom both we and they must hereafter give an account ; and, in the 
mean time, should we upon reflection regard it as a duty to convert 
others to our own peculiar opinions, let us never cease to remember 
that reason and argument are the only weapons of spiritual warfare. 
And, even in the use of these, we shall do well constantly to bear in 
mind, that revealed religion was graciously vouchsafed to man, " non 
disputandi causa, sed ita vivendi." — Henry Bathurst, Bishop of 
Norwich, as quoted in the Unitarian Miscellany for February, 1823. 

This extract is made from a speech delivered by Bishop Bathurst, 
Oct. 3, 1822, in reply to an address presented to him by the Eastern Unitarian 
Society, thanking him for " his uniform attachment and marked devotion tc 
the cause of religious liberty." 

10* 



114 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NA»_ 

We see in the theology of Newton the very spirit and principle 
which gave all its stability and all its sureness to the philosophy of 
Newton. We see the same tenacious adherence to every one doctrine 
that had such valid proof to uphold it as could be gatheied from 
the field of human experience ; and we see the same firm resistance 
of every one argument that had nothing to recommend it but such 
plausibilities as could easily be devised by the genius of man, when he 
expatiated abroad on those fields of creation which the eye never 
witnessed, and from which no messenger ever came to us with any 
credible information. Now, it was on the former of these two prin- 
ciples that Newton clung so determinedly to his Bible, as the record 
of an actual annunciation from God to the inhabitants of this world. 
When he turned his attention to this book, he came to it with a mind 
tutored to the philosophy of facts ; and, when he looked at its cre- 
dentials, he saw the stamp and the impress of this philosophy on 
every one of them. He saw the fact of Christ being a Messenger 
from heaven, in the audible language by which it was conveyed from 
heaven's canopy to human ears. He saw the fact of his being an 
approved Ambassador of God, in those miracles which carried their own 
resistless evidence along with them to human eyes. . . . He saw the 
reality of that supernatural light which inspired the prophecies he 
himself illustrated, by such an agreement with the events of a various 
and distant futurity as could be taken cognizance of by human observa- 
tion. He saw the wisdom of God pervading the whole substance of 
the written message, in such manifold adaptations to the circumstances 
of man, and to the whole secrecy of his thoughts and his affections 
and his spiritual wants and his moral sensibilities, as, even in the mind 
of an ordinary and unlettered peasant, can be attested by human con- 
sciousness. These formed the solid materials of the basis on which 
our experimental philosopher stood, . . . When I look at the steadv 
and unmoved Christianity of this wonderful man, so far from seeing 
any symptom of dotage and imbecility, or any forgetfulness of those 
principles on which the fabric of his philosophy is reared, do I see, 
that, in sitting down to the work of a Bible commentator, he hath 
given us their most beautiful and most consistent exemplification. — 
Dr. Thomas Chalmers : Astronomical Discourses, Disc. 2 ; in Select 
Works, vol. iv. pp. 375-6. 

In his Preface, where he endeavors to qualify this eloquent panegyric on 
Newton as an interpreter of the Bible, Dr. Chalmers admits, what some 
have unreasonably denied, that that great philosopher was a Unitarian. 



UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIkN NAME. 115 

Dr. George Benson was a man of great piety and learning, in- 
tensely studious, and unwearied in his researches after theological 
truth, which was the principal business of his life. On all occasions 
he was a zealous advocate for free inquiry and the right of private 
judgment ; but, though his integrity was unquestioned, yet the freedom 
with which he expressed his sentiments on some points controverted 
amongst Christians, exposed him to censures and indecent reflections 

from men of little candor and contracted views Dr. Samuel 

Chandler in a few years became alike a Christian, and a classical, 
biblical, and oriental scholar. He had long been the subject of a 
very painful disorder, which he bore with the piety and fortitude of 
a Christian. His remains were attended by many eminent ministers, 
who during his life appreciated his merits, and at his death paid him 

those honors which his virtues and piety so justly deserved 

In the controversy which unhappily raged in 1718 on the Trinitarian 
question, Dr. James Foster adopted the Arian creed. His integrity 
was unimpeached, and he was a decided Nonconformist. His popu- 
larity as a preacher is said to have been well supported by a fine 
commanding voice, accompanied with an intrepidity in avowing his 
sentiments, which all ought to imitate. Error is never more dangerous 
than when it walks in disguise. He was unjustly charged with Deism 
by some who could not distinguish between his negative creed and 
complete infidelity. He ever protested that he was a firm believer in 
revelation, and despised the meanness of professing Christianity with- 
out conviction Dr. Nathaniel Lardner was an upright and 

devout Christian. From the time he enlisted in the cause of Chris- 
tianity, he was a faithful and sincere champion, and defended its cause 
with great seriousness and solemnity. — Abridged from William 
Joxes, M. A., Author of the History of the Waldenses : Christian 
Biography f a Dictionary of the Lives and Writings of the most 
distinguished Christians, pp. 37, 105-6, 161-2, 270. 

In this Biography of distinguished Christians, Mr. Jones includes many 
other Unitarians than those mentioned in the preceding extracts. 

The first point to be considered by those who meditate the project 
of re-union is its practicability. Those who are disposed to assert it 
will observe the number of important articles of religious faith in 
which all Christians are agreed, and the proportionally small number 
of those in which any Christians disagree. All Christians believe, that, 
1. There is one God ; 2. That he is a Being of infinite perfection ; 



1 1 6 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 

3. That he directs all things by his providence ; 4. That it is our dutj 
to love him with all our hearts, and our neighbors as ourselves ; 5. 
That it is our duty to repent of the sins we commit ; 6. That God 
pardons the truly penitent ; 7. That there is a future state of rewards 
and punishment, when all mankind shall be judged according to their 
works ; 8. That God sent his Son into the world to be its Saviour, 
the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him ; 9. That he is the 
true Messiah ; 10. That he taught, worked miracles, suffered, died, 
and rose again, as is related in the Four Gospels; 11. That he will 
hereafter make a second appearance on the earth, raise all mankind 
from the dead, judge the world in righteousness, bestow eternal 
life on the virtuous, and punish the workers of iniquity. In the 
belief of these articles, all Christians — Roman Catholics, Lutherans, 
Calvinists, Quakers, Anabaptists, and Socinians — are agreed. — 
Charles Butler : Reminiscences, pp. 200-1. 

I dare not hesitate to avow my regret that any scheme of doctrines 
or tenets should be the subject of penal law. ... It is the manner, the 
means, that constitute the crime. The merit or demerit of the opinions 
themselves depends on their originating and determining causes, which 
may differ in every different believer, and are certainly known to Him 
alone who commanded us, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." . . . 
Judging by all that we can pretend to know or are entitled to infer, 
who among us will take on himself to deny that the late Dr. Priestley 
was a good and benevolent man, as sincere in his love, as he was intre- 
pid and indefatigable in his pursuit, of truth ? . . . Persuaded that 
the doctrines enumerated in pp. 229-30, are not only essential to the 
Christian religion, but those which contradistinguish the religion as 
Christian, I merely assert this persuasion in another form, when I 
assert, that, in my sense of the word " Christian," Unitarianism is not 
Christianity. But do I say that those who call themselves Unitarians 
are not Christians ? God forbid ! I would not think, much less pro- 
mulgate, a judgment at once so presumptuous and so uncharitable. — 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Aids to Reflection ; in Works, vol. L 
pp. 237-9. 

Sentiments of a similar kind will be found in Biographia Literaria 
(Works, vol. iii. pp. 593-4), where Coleridge, forgetting his " Confessio 
Fidei" of 1816 (Works, vol. v. p. 17), indignantly contradicts the charge of 
his having denied Unitarians to be Christians. From the orthodox point 
of view, this eminent writer could not reasonably be expected to look on 
Unitarianism as Christianity; and it would be equally unreasonable to 
expect, that from an opposite and what we would call a more evangelical 



UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 117 

stand-point, the believer in the doctrine of the simple Unity of God could 
regard Trinitarhmism, in its essential features and its ecclesiastical aspect, 
in any other light than as a relic of Heathenism. But it does not foltow, 
that, because they hold each other's opinions to be in a great degree hostile 
to the truths inculcated in Scripture, the Unitarian and the Trinitarian must 
necessarily think, one of the other, that he is altogether devoid of Christian 
principle, Christian faith, Christian affection; that it is impossible for him 
to love the Lord Jesus in sincerity, or to trust in him as the Messiah and 
the Kedeemer, " whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world." *f 

I know very well that my learned friend will probably here say, " I 
do not admit the Unitarian to be a Christian ; " but I am not obliged 
to listen to such explanation on the part of my learned friend. If the 
Unitarian be not a Christian, it is in consequence of that prerogative 
with which my learned friend gratuitously invests him, namely, the 
right of interpreting the Bible for himself, spurning the authority of 
the church of ages, which teaches us that Christ is both God and man. 
It is utterly useless for my friend to tell me the Unitarian is not sincere 
and Christian. What ! proscribe all the Unitarians in England ; men 
of splendid and commanding genius ; men of conscience and honor ; 
men of integrity and truth j men who live and die — die actually with 
the persuasion that Christ is mere man, and " Intercessor " — who 
believe in God most firmly ! Is it just, is it honorable, to say they are 
not Christians, when it is his very system, the system which he him- 
self recommends, that has caused their unchristianization ? Oh, it is 
really unfair ! it is decidedly unkind, ungenerous, and unfair on the part 
of my learned friend, or on the part of any clergyman of the church of 
England or Scotland. — Mr. French, a Catholic Barrister : Discussion 
between him and the Rev. J. Cumming, at Hammersmith, in 1840; 
p. 482. 

So long as the main sentiment is unexceptionable, we do not think it 
necessary to point out, in all cases, the minor points in which we differ from 
an author quoted ; but we may take the opportunity to remark, that Mr. 
French greatly errs, when, in eulogizing English Unitarians, he says it is 
their persuasion that Christ is " mere man." Leaving out of view such 
persons as are termed Rationalists or Transcendentalists, we know of no one 
belonging to the Unitarian denomination, either in Great Britain or in 
America, who would employ such a phrase. It may, however, have been 
used to imply only that many Unitarians have regarded Jesus in nature as 
a human being, and not an angel or a God ; but the expression is calculated 
to mislead, as if Humanitarians thought that the well-beloved of the Father 
was merely a common or an undistinguished man. or, at the most, one of 
the old Hebrew prophets. 



118 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 

An Unitarian, as such, is a Christian ; that is, if a man follows 
Christ's law, and believes his words according to his conscientious 
sense of their meaning, he is a Christian ; and though I may think he 
understands Christ's words amiss, yet that is a question of interpreta- 
tion, and no more. The purpose of his heart and mind is to obey and 
be guided by Christ, and therefore he is a Christian. — Dr. Thomas 
Arnold : Letter 158 ; in Life and Correspondence, p. 299. 

wWhen I look at the reception, by the Unitarians, both of the Old 
and New Testament, I cannot, for my part, strongly as I dislike their 
theology, deny to those who acknowledge the basis of divine fact the 
name of Christian. Who, indeed, is justified in denying the title to 
any one who professes to love Christ in sincerity ? — Bishop Hampden, 
apud London Inquirer for December 4, 1847. 

No man has a right to call himself a Christian, if he be not a 
Christian in the ordinary acceptation of the word, — if he do not, for 
example, believe that Jesus Christ really rose from the dead, according 
to the Scriptures. This common acceptation of the term " Christian " 
will, indeed, include many who hold what appear to us very false 
notions of Christianity ; as, for instance, the Unitarians. But we must 
take language as we find it. The true meaning of a word is what is 
commonly understood by it ; neither more nor less. ... So it is with 
the word " Christian." We are not justified in denying that title to 
an Unitarian, on the ground that he denies what we hold as an essen- 
tial doctrine of Christianity. Nor would a Roman Catholic be justified 
in refusing it to all but members of what he regards as the only true 
church ; or a Baptist, to all except those whom he consider* really 
baptized persons. ... A Christian — whatever any one may conceive 
the word ought to mean — does mean, in ordinary speech, neither 
more nor less than one who regards Jesus Christ as the founder of 
his religion, and as coming from God. — Archbishop Whately : 
Cautions for the Times, pp. 498-9. 

In pp. 492-3, this master of language and of logic proves — what but tor 
the exclusiveness of some religionists would require no proof — that "to 
whatever extent any one has embraced Christianity, his religion is evan- 
gelical." 

I have heard it once and again affirmed that Unitarians are not 
Christians ; and some, in their unreflecting zeal, — some even of those 
whom I sincerely respect, — have gone so far as to call Socinianism a 
half-way house towards infidelity; forgetting that a half-way house, 
from the nature of the thing, ex vi termini, must be as well from as 



UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 119 

towards, — either to infidelity, or from infidelity to Christianity : and, 
accordingly I have known eminent converts from the superstitions of 
the East who were Socinians. But when misguided men, of more 
zeal than knowledge, would thus distinguish the Unitarian from the 
Christian, whom, I will ask, do we fondly cite as our highest authori- 
ties when we are engaged in defending our religion against its infidel 
adversaries ? In arguing with these upon the evidences, how often 
has one said, " What better would you have than that which satis- 
fied the greatest masters of science, the great luminaries of law ? 
Who was ever a better judge of legal evidence than Hale ; of moral 
evidence than Locke; of mathematical and physical evidence than 
Newton ? " And yet Locke at one time labored under grave suspicion 
of Unitarianism, — groundless, perhaps, though he was at the least an 
Arian. But that Newton was a Unitarian is quite certain, ... as 
thorough a Unitarian as ever attended Essex-street Chapel. My 
noble and learned friend (Lord Campbell) will find this clearly proved 
by Sir David Brewster from examination of the Newton manuscripts, 
which, that learned person says, leave not the shadow of a doubt upon 
the subject. Your Lordships, indeed, are not Unitarians : I question 
if there be one in this House. Certainly there have been, — the 
Duke of Grafton and others : with them we may not agree ; but 
assuredly their errors are not to be corrected by denying that Sir Isaac 
Newton was a Christian, or Dr. Lardner — he to whose writings the 
defence of our religion owes so great an obligation, that they form a 
large proportion, nay the very foundation, of Dr. Paley's celebrated 
work. With these eminent men you may differ ; you may keep aloof 
as wide as you will from them ; but it is not by denying the Chris- 
tianity of Newton and Lardner that you can turn Socinians aside from 
their track. Neither of their heresies nor of far greater tnan theirs, 
have 1 the least dread. I have no alarm for the truth, — no fear of 
error. Let truth be left to the attacks of its enemies, error to the 
care of its friends, and I have no apprehension of the result. But one 
thing I do fear; one thing does alarm me; and that is persecuted 
error. — Lord Brougham, in a Speech on National Education, 
delivered in the House of Lords, Aug. 4, 1854 ; reported in Hansard's 
Parliamentary Debates, third series, vol. exxxv. p. 1313-14. 

Lord Campbell merely rose to express his disapproval of the man- 
ner" in which, as his noble and learned friend had said, the Unitarians 
had been persecuted. He (Lord Campbell) was not aware that Sir 
Isaa* Newton was a Socinian • he "had always believed him to have 



120 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 

been an Arian. He believed, however, that the Socinians numbered 
among themselves many men of good education, of great attainments, 
and of irreproachable lives. Though this sect labored under what he 
conceived to be a lamentable error, still they were Christians, and 
ought to be treated as such. Until the repeal of the statutes of 
William III., Socinians had labored under various disabilities, and were 
not entitled to all the privileges of the Act of Uniformity : but now 
they were placed on the same footing as the other religious sects ; and, 
though hoping that they might see their error, he yet trusted, that, 
while they continued in their error, they would be treated as Christian 
brethren, and not, as they had been, as something worse than infidels. 
— Hansard's Report of Lord Campbell's Reply to Lord Brougham* 

Lords Brougham and Campbell mistake when they draw a line of 
distinction between Arians and Unitarians, by restricting the latter name to 
ihose whom they, as well as many others, call Socinians. An Arian believes 
in the pre-existence of Christ, as a being inferior to God ; a Socinian, or 
rather a Humanitarian, rejects the doctrine of Christ's pre-existence, and, 
while regarding him as the highest representative of Deity and as the 
appointed Saviour of the world, thinks that he was in nature onty a man. 
But both are Unitarians, because they agree in holding the doctrine of God's 
strict or simple Unity, and the unqualified subordination of the Lord Jesus 
to the one God and Father of all. It will be seen, however, that our cor 
rection does not in the least diminish the force of the remarks made by 
Lords Brougham and Campbell as to the religious standing of the deno- 
mination to which they refer. 

The denial of the Divinity of Christ is undoubtedly a great error ; 
and an error which, if admitted, leads to many other great and inju- 
rious errors. But it is as undoubtedly the error of many noble and 
ingenuous minds, and of many devout and earnest Christians. . . . 
Grotius, Le Clerc, and Wetstein, in Holland ; and Whiston, Samuel 
Clarke, Lardner, Locke, Newton, and Milton, in England, — are all 
reckoned among the rejecters of the Supreme Divinity of Christ. 
A list of more illustrious names and more eminent Christians could 
hardly be found. — Leicester A. Sawyer: Organic Christianity, 
pp. 408-9, 445. 

The only remark which it seems necessary to make on Mr. Sawyer's 
liberal sentiments is, that, though the comments of Grotius and Le Clerc on 
many passages of Scripture are consonant with the interpretations usually 
laid down by Unitarians, these distinguished writers were professedly Trini- 
tarian in their views, and defended themselves from the charges of Anti- 
trinitarianism preferred by some of their contemporaries against them. 



UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 121 

This [" Memoir of Mary L. Ware "] is a beautiful life of a beautiful 
character. The character was not beautiful in the romantic incidents 
of an existence diversified by strange adventures, or by the fascinations 
that gather around a splendid career in society ; but it was beautiful, 
if self-sacrifice, consistency, cheerfulness, and security can make a 
beautiful Christian character. ... It [the Memoir] is a beautiful 
pendant to the charming life of her beloved husband. We commend 
it most cordially to our readers, as a firm example of what a true 
Christian woman should aim to become. The ethics of the gospel are 
here exhibited in their true spirit of self-devotion and self-forge tfuln ess. 
We could wish that many who profess a sounder and more consistent 
creed adorned their course by a character and a life half as consistent as 
were those of Mrs. Ware. — New Englander for August, 1853 ; 
vol. xi. (new series, vol. v.) pp. 477-8. 



In concluding a chapter, the materials for which have been gathered 
to show that the spirit of Sectarianism is inconsistent with the spirit of 
Christianity, and whose tendency is to exhibit a truth which Christendom 
has been slow to learn, — that the church of Christ is not confined within 
the precincts either of Roman Catholicism or of any one of the various 
Protestant denominations, but is co-extensive with the sincere, the good, 
the pure, and the truth-loving, of every name, who profess to believe in God 
and his Messiah, and who, whether they be few or many, meet together for 
purposes of worship and instruction, — it may not be inappropriate to maks 
some remarks on the title " Christian," which has been denied by a majority 
of orthodox believers to those who differ from them in opinion, but which, 
as exemplified in these pages, not a few of them have, in a spirit of candor 
and liberality, applied, both individually and generally, to Unitarians. 

This word, " Christian," whether as a noun or an adjective, occurs, as 
well in books as in conversation, with various and different significations. 

1. It is sometimes used to distinguish a people or nation w T hose religion 
is ostensibly that which was taught by Christ, from those nations whose 
opinions as to the proper objects of faith and worship have been taken from 
other real or supposed divine Messengers. Thus we speak of a Mohammedan 
country, when we mean to imply, not that each and all of its inhabitants are 
faithful to the code of Mohammed, but merely that his religion has, to a very 
considerate extent, moulded the belief, the character, and the usages of the 
people. So also we speak of a Christian country, meaning by this phrase 
that Christianity is more or less blended with its government, laws, and 
institutions; affects the state of society and of civilization manifested by 
all classes and orders within its bounds; and holds a certain undefinable 
authority over their faith, morals, and habits. But it is obvious that this 
mode of employing the term is exceedingly loose. For, in every such couu* 

11 



122 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 

try there are, unhappily ^ many but little subject to the principles which 
Jesus inculcated, — as the professors of other religions, the professors of 
none at all, the indifferent and the reckless, the abandoned and the ignorant, 
the inmates of the prison or the workhouse, of whom some have scarcely 
heard the name of God or Christ, unless when associated with profanity ; to 
say nothing of the prevalence of passions and practices among the professors 
of Christianity themselves, — the spirit of war, the craft of merchandise, the 
bane of intemperance, the zeal of partisanship in religion and politics, and 
the curse of despotism or of slavery. But, though occasionally used in this 
vague and inaccurate sense, startling the thoughtful mind by the contrasts 
which it awakens, the term is unambiguous, and serves the purpose for which 
it is employed. 

2. The word " Christian " is also sometimes used to point out an indi- 
vidual, of any religious persuasion, whether he be a Mohammedan, a Jew, 
or a Pagan, who is distinguished from other men by the excellence of his 
moral character, so marked in his conduct as to resemble, though uninten- 
tionally, the exhibitions of the benevolent spirit in Christ. In this sense 
the term was applied by some of the early Fathers to the virtuous sages of 
antiquity. But it is quite evident that only by a figure of speech can it be 
said of one who lived before the time of Christ, or who has never heard of hia 
name, that he is a disciple of Christ, or a Christian, no matter how nearly 
he may approximate to Jesus in his spirit and pursuits. 

3. The most common signification of the term is that according to which 
it is made to denote a person who assents to certain dogmas of a particular 
branch of Christ's church, that are called, by way of distinction, " sound " 
or " orthodox." To this use of the word there are strong objections. It is 
too narrow in its comprehension, too vague and shifting in its import. It 
has its root in spiritual pride and uncharitable judgment; and its pestiferous 
breath would blast some of the holiest affections that grace domestic and 
social life. Every church, and every individual member of it, have an 
equal claim to call their opinions orthodox, and to regard those which are 
opposite as heretical or heterodox; and, if the element of dogmatic sound- 
ness enter into the import of the Christian name, all churches and all 
individuals avowing the religion of Jesus must have respectively a right to 
restrict this name to themselves, and to withhold it from others. And what 
would be the result but a war of words, burning zeal, and damnatory denun 
eiations, — the very antipodes to the whole aim and intent of Christianity ) 
What the result has been is already told in the domination of the Romish 
church, and in the petty sectarianisms which have so often rent asundei 
the bonds of love and communion between Protestants. 

4. A less frequent, but a more liberal, sense of the term " Christian " is 
its application to any one who, whatever may be his peculiar conception 
of the doctrines of Christianity, admits the divine or supernatural mission of 
its Founder. The word occurs only three times in the New Testament, 
Acts xi. 26; xxvi. 28. 1 Pet. iv. 16; and, with the exception of Peter, does 
not seem to have been used by any of the apostles. Words however, of » 



UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 123 

similar import are often met with; as, "disciples," "believers," "breth- 
ren," " saints," " the elect," &c. ; and, being applied indiscriminately to all 
who confessed the name of Christ, though they differed in moral deportment 
and in some doctrinal points, must have been employed to denote rather 
their obligation to be holy in their lives, and faithful to their professions, 
than to indicate the purity and spirituality of their characters, or the 
orthodoxy of their opinions. As soon as a Jew or a Heathen acknowledged 
by baptism Jesus to be the Messiah or the Son of God, he was admitted 
amongst the band of disciples or saints, without any questions being asked 
as to the precise nature of his belief; and, in correspondence with this prac- 
tice among the apostles, the Unitarian Locke and the Trinitarian Whately 
would regard as Christians all who openly acknowledge the divine authority 
of Jesus. 

5. It is obvious that the use of the term " Christian," in the sense just 
mentioned, — namely, in its application to all professing churches and 
members of Christ, — would preclude much of that curious cavilling as to 
the belief of our fellow-men, and that unjustifiable prying into the depths 
of their hearts, which have always marked the conduct and demeanor of 
sectarians. But there is another and a more accurate use of the term, when 
it is employed to indicate one who not only admits the supernatural and 
miraculous origin of Christianity, but who manifests in his conversation 
and life the moral dispositions which Jesus prescribed and exemplified. 
If he may be called a Christian who publicly acknowledges his belief in 
Christ and his obligation to live in conformity with that profession, surely 
the man who not only " names the name of Christ," but who " departs from 
iniquity," — who not only calls him " Lord and Master," but, with a heart 
full of love and reverence towards him, does what the great Messenger of 
Heaven commanded, is a disciple of Christ, a true Christian. All such 
men, whatever may be the complexion of their creed, are the real members 
of Christ's church. They are the saints of the earth, — the elect of God, 
for whom Jesus has gone to prepare a place in the mansions of his Father. 
Both this and the preceding sense of the term " Christian" is countenanced 
by some of the able and catholic writers from whom we have quoted ; and 
we cannot doubt, that, despite of sectarian influences, many will be glad to 
do the same justice to those who, " after the way which is called heresy, 
worship the God of their fathers." 

6. There is still another sense in which the term " Christian " may, wa 
think, be used; but its correctness will probably be denied by almost all 
members of orthodox churches, and be acknowledged by only a few 
Unitarians. We mean that sense in which the word is employed to repre- 
sent a man who, whether he holds or does not hold Christianity to be a 
supernatural revelation, professes to regard Jesus Christ as pre-eminently 
his Master and Teacher in all matters of religion, and who shows by his 
discourse and his actions, that he has imbibed the spirit of the best and 
wisest One amongst the good and the wise of all nations and all times. We 
do not sympathize with the views of those who would banish the miraculous 



124 UNITARIANS ENTITLED TO THE CHRISTIAN NAME. 

from Christ and Christianity, and place Jesus merely among, or even at the 
head of, the class of philosophers and reformers who have been raised up by 
Providence to enlighten or instruct the race. We believe, that, in his offices 
and his character, he stands immeasurably above the Socrates, the Platos, 
and the Zoroasters, good and great as they may have been ; and that he 
received from the Being who sent him influences of a special kind to 
become — what no other has shown that he could become — the Redeemer 
of the world. Were we to reject the peculiarly divine element of the 
Gospels, we fear that we should be unable to admit the surpassing moral 
beauty and the godlike majesty of Christ's character, bound up as it seems 
to be indissolubly with the truthfulness of the wondrous tale; and should 
be ready to exclaim, " They have taken away my Lord, and I know not 
where they have laid him." We should feel that the doubts and the specu- 
lations which had shaken our faith in the unmeasured inspiration of Christ 
had taken away the grounds for belief in his pre-eminent graces, — had 
taken away the Logos of God from the soul of the great Nazarene, — 
had taken away all those attributes which made Jesus at once the Repre- 
sentative, the Image, the incarnate Son of God, and the type of a divine or 
perfected humanity, — had taken away that depth of affection which wept 
at the tomb of Lazarus, and gave back a living brother to the arms of affec- 
tionate sisters, — taken away that voice of wisdom, which, flowing from the 
bosom of the infinite Father, through the Son of his love, spoke of life and 
immortality in tones of authority unused by Hebrew seer or Grecian sage, 
— taken away all the power and glory of that resurrection which was the 
pledge of Christ's truth, the reward of his sacrificing love, and the gate 
of his entrance to the realms of heaven, to the right hand of God, where he 
still acts on man's behalf, still implores a Father's mercy on an erring and 
a sinful world ; — that these doubts and speculations had taken away the 
substance of our Lord, and changed it into a shadow ; that they had anato- 
mized the breathing reality of Jesus, and converted it into a myth. 

But we speak of our own feelings and convictions, not of those expe 
rienced by other minds. If, without his miracles, men can believe in Christ, 
let us rejoice; if, unable to recognize a voice from heaven at the baptism of 
Jesus, or to see a divine arm open his tomb and bring him forth, they can, 
notwithstanding, regard him as their Lord and Master, let us not refuse 
them his blessed name ; if, while bigots frown and even the charitable shake 
their heads, the Rationalist sincerely obeys the behests of the Son of Mary, 
though he may doubt his claims as the divinely inspired Messiah, let us not 
forbid him u because he followeth not us," but be thankful for what faith he 
nas, and, in a spirit of Christian kindness and unfeigned affection, try to win 
him to the blessing pronounced on the confession, " Thou art Jesus, the 
Son of God." 



125 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF THEOLOGICAL TRUTH, AND THE 
UNRESTRICTED MEANS OF ACQUIRING IT. 



SECT. L — THE IMPORTANCE OF RIGHT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION. 

Loving truth 
And wisdom for their own divinest selves. 

P. J. Bailey. 

In the preceding chapter, it was our aim to show, by the assistance of emi- 
nent writers in the ranks of the Orthodox, that the spirit which has been so 
often manifested by the professed disciples of Jesus towards one another, — 
the spirit of narrowness, of denunciation, and of persecution, — is wholly 
alien to the genius and the objects of Christianity; that, however it may 
disguise itself, whether in the garb of superior sanctity, of soundness of 
faith, or of a zeal for the cause of Heaven, this rampant spirit is at war 
with God's paternal character, with Christ's merciful message, and with 
man's best and noblest interests. We trust, however, that the sentiments 
contained in that chapter, while tending to deepen in the soul of the reader 
a love for his brethren of all theological denominations, may not have a 
deadening effect on his appreciation of the value of truth, as if it were of no 
importance whether a man's conceptions of religion be correct or otherwise. 
It certainly was not the intention of these writers to foster any such indif- 
ference in the minds of others; for many of them have been remarkable 
for their love of knowledge, and for their zeal in diffusing what they be- 
lieved to be the doctrines of the gospel. Indeed, there is, and can be, no 
dissonance between the broadest views of the rights of our brethren in 
Christ, and the most devoted reverence for truth; though the cant of libe- 
ralUy may sometimes be heard from the lips of men who " care for none of 
these things;" who pay as little respect to those great principles of religion 
which are acknowledged by all professing Christians, as to the forms and 
dogmas which separate them into classes and parties. So far from there 
being any opposition between catholicity of feeling and a desire to possess 
and to spread right apprehensions of the nature of Christianity, that the 
most earnest inquirers after truth are of all men found to be the least acri 
monious towards those who differ from them, because, in their investigations, 
they have had most need to practise such virtues as are conducive to cha- 
ritable dispositions; and because, from their observation and their own 

11 # 



126 IMPORTANCE OF JUST VIEWS OF RELIGION. 

experience, they are the best cognizant of the various influences which tend 
inevitably to the production of variety of opinion. So also the true lover of 
his kind, the follower of peace, the friend of universal religious freedom, the 
opposer of all kinds of persecution, the member of Christ's catholic church, 
— who recognizes the disciples of Christ in the sincere, the good, and 
the humble-minded of all denominations, — will, if he be consistent with the 
principles from which his charity flows and takes its power, embrace every 
proper means for the diffusion of sentiments calculated to produce harmony 
and love among the various members of society. Knowing that the harsh 
thoughts, the bad tempers, and the unfeeling and condemnatory judgments 
of Christians, so called, have originated in their ignorance of the benign 
doctrines of the gospel, or rather in their forgetfulness of these amid their 
vain wranglings about matters which they do not understand or which 
cannot be understood, he will be led to disseminate what he regards as 
evangelical truth ; he will recommend, in his conversation and his life, if he 
cannot by the aid of the pulpit or the press, those principles which constitute 
the chief elements of Christianity, — the fatherhood of God, and the fraternity 
of man; the intrinsic worth of a soul made in the image of its Creator; the 
ruin effected in its constitution by the ravages of sin ; the possibility of its 
recovery to a state of holiness, and of reconciliation to a Father's favor, 
through the at-one-ment which he who labored and died for the good of all, 
offers to those who, truly repentant, strive, with the energy of renewed and 
devoted wills, to become Christ-like in their submission to God ; Christ-like 
in the piety, the purity, the benevolence, of their hearts and lives. 



No service is more acceptable to God, and no conduct can be more 
pious or praiseworthy, than to aim at truth, and to acquire its trans- 
forming influence ; and, being once attempted, the labor will become 
so delightful that it will never be relinquished. The knowledge of any 
truth is pleasant ; but the knowledge of Christian truth is singularly 
beneficial. — Melancthon; in Cox's IAfe of Melandhon, p. 92. 

Abhor all doctrines which blaspheme or dishonor the name of God, 
and would blemish and hide the glory of his majesty. I give you this 
rule for your own preservation, and not in imitation of uncharitable 
firebrands and dividers of the church, to exercise your pride and 
imperious humor, in condemning all men to whose opinions y*ou can 
maliciously affix a blasphemous consequence, which either followeth 
but in your own imagination, or is not acknowledged, bat hated, by 
those on whom you do affix it. Let it suffice you to detest false 
doctrines, without detesting the persons that you imagine guilty of 
them, who profess to believe the contrary truth as steadfastly as you 
yourselves. — Richard Baxter : Christian Directory ; in Practical 
Works, vol ii. p. 437. 



IMPORTANCE OF JUST VIEWS OF RELIGION. 127 

To have right apprehensions of God is the great foundation of all 
religion ; for, according as men's notions of God are, such will their 
religion be. If men have gross and false conceptions of God, their reli- 
gion will be absurd and superstitious. If men fancy God to be an 
ill-natured Being, armed with infinite power, — one that delights in the 
misery and ruin of his creatures, and is ready to take all advantages 
against them, — they may fear him, but they will hate him j and they 
will be apt to be such towards one another as they fancy God to be 
towards them ; for all religion doth naturally incline men to imitate 
him whom they worship. — Archbishop Tillotson : Sermon 5 ; in 
Works, voL i. p. 101. 

Truth is in all things so worthy and desirable, that a generous spirit 
will think he can never prize it enough. We see the greatest men 
have made it the whole business of their lives to pursue it even in the 
smallest instances, and have thought their labors worthily rewarded, if, 
with the greatest application, and it may be with some danger and loss 
too, they have but been able to find it out at the last. — Archbishop 
Wake : Sermons and Discourses, p. 235. 

To ascertain the character of the Supreme Author of all things ; to 
know, as far as we are capable of comprehending such a subject, what 
is his moral disposition, what the situation we stand in towards him, 
and the principles by which he conducts his administration, — will be 
allowed by every considerate person to be of the highest consequence. 
Compared to this, all other speculations or inquiries sink into insig- 
nificance, because every event that can befall us is in his hands, and by 
his sentence our final condition must be fixed. To regard such an 
inquiry with indifference is the mark, not of a noble but of an abject 
mind, which, immersed in sensuality or amused with trifles, deems 

itself unworthy of eternal life As it [morality] is the genuine 

frui* of just and affecting views of divine truth, you will never sever 
it from its parent stock, nor indulge the fruitless hope of leading men 
to holiness, without strongly imbuing them with the f pirit of the 
gospel. Truth and holiness are in the Christian system so intimately 
allied, that the warm and faithful inculcation of the one lays the only 

foundation for the other Let us cultivate the most cordial 

esteem for all that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Let us 
anxiously guard against that asperity and contempt which have too 
often mingled with theological debates ; but let us aim, at the same 
time, to acquire and retain the most accurate conceptions of religious 
truth. Every improvement in the knowledge of Christ and the 



128 IMPORTANCE OF JUST VIEWS OF RELIGION. 

mysteries of the gospel will abundantly compensate for the labor and 
attention necessary to its attainment. — Robert Hall : Works, vol. i. 
pp. 121-2, 146; vol. ii. p. 448. 

Almost all men are forced to feel and acknowledge, that we our- 
selves, and the whole world we see about us, depend on some 
superhuman Cause or Power which has a control over us, and from 
which our happiness or misery comes. Now, the notions men form 
of such superhuman powers, the feelings they entertain towards them, 
and the course of behavior springing from such notions and feelings, — 
these are what we call religion ; the superhuman powers, real or ima- 
ginary, being called the objects of religion. You will readily perceive, 
then, that men's religions will be different, according as the objects of 
their religion are different. If a man worships a Being whom he 
thinks good, but not all-knowing, he will often be satisfied with trying 
to appear good, without becoming so. If he worships one whom he 
thinks spiteful, he will try to appease his malice by doing injury and 
inflicting pain on himself and others. If he worships one whom he 
does not think all-powerful, he will be apt sometimes to neglect his 
service for that of some other power, if there seem to be a chance of 
gaining any thing by the change. If a man thinks his deity vain, ho 
will try to flatter him ; if weakly compassionate, to move his pity by 
doleful lamentations and complaints. In short, as the behavior of a 
family will be influenced by the character of the master of the house, 
so the religion of men will be influenced by the character which they 
suppose to be that of the Being whom they worship. — Archbishop 
Whately : Cautions for the Times, pp. 70-1. 

One great end of a true education is to discipline the mind for the 
candid and unprejudiced pursuit of truth. It teaches the honest 
Christian to renounce all pious fraud, and not to think that it can ever 
be for God's glory that we should He for him. Moreover, it teaches 
that it is for the interest of all to know the truth, and that it is a duty 
to be faithful to it at any sacrifice of reputation or property, or personal 
ease and enjoyment. It also recognizes the truth which is taught 
by the structure of the human mind, by the material universe, and by 
providence, as a part of the revelation which God has made to man as 
really as the Bible, and does not feel at liberty to suppress any truth 
taught by God. — Dr. Edward Beecher : Conflict of Jiges, p. 360. 

The search after and discovery of truth is one of the secrets of 
exalted happiness ; and therefore shall we always find that those who 
are in reality the wisest and best are most impelled to communicate 






IMPORTANCE OF JUST VIEWS OF RELIGION. 129 

their knowledge to the widest ranks Divine truth is the 

primary want of the human soul, the ground of its own emancipation, 
and the means of its triumph over all outward foes. The full ex- 
pansion and complete donation of this highest gift God has reserved 
to the ultimate energies of Christian doctrine on all mankind. All 
virtue is the inimitable fruit of truth ; and the gospel is worthy of 
all acceptation, because the excellence it produces is the most vera- 
cious and enduring This omnipotence and ineffable glory 

of truth is vouchsafed to man only for the purpose of promoting 
practical godliness. All its emanations are infinitely superior to the 
inertness of mere dogmas, since they are designed to make man both 
politically energetic and morally regenerative. ... It is truth to be 
proclaimed, not simply as theological doctrine, but a mighty and saving 
revelation, a celestial fact free for all, which ought to interfuse every 
thought we think, adorn every deed we do, and be allowed unobstruct- 
edly to grow, less as a mere luxury of the intellect than the mightiest 
passion of the heart — E. L. Magoon : Republican Christianity, 
pp. 320, 353, 366. 

There is another reason why we should not voluntarily suffer any 
form of error to attach itself to the doctrines of Christianity, and go 
forth under their sanction, to which I would briefly allude. However 
harmless, or beneficial even, such error may for a time appear, it is 
sure in the end to work mischief. Like the little book of the angel 
in the Apocalypse, though sweet in the mouth, it will make the belly 
bitter. Even though its direct influence on the heart and the life be 
not prejudicial, it will prove an obstacle in the way of the general 
reception of the doctrine with which it is associated. To the sincere 
and earnest inquirer after truth, it becomes a stumbling-block ; while, to 
the enemies of our holy religion, it serves as a mark for the direction 
of their shafts. The Christian minister, who, by his eloquence and 
fervid zeal, spreads erroneous doctrines through the churches, does 
more to harm Christianity than a hundred infidels. Besides furnishing 
its adversaries with their most potent weapons against it, he is himself 
scattering broadcast the seeds from which scepticism and unbelief will, 

sooner or later, spring up I think it not difficult to see how 

generally received error, here, may exert an influence upon thoughtful 
minds greatly to be deprecated. Let us suppose a man whose ideas 
of the character and government of God have been formed chiefly from 
the observation of his works. . . . Tell him that the object of the 
Divine Being, in creating the world, was the illustration of his own 



130 IMPORTANCE OF JUST VIEWS OF RELIGION. 

attributes, and not the good of his creatures ; that he forms and makes 
use of them in whatever way may best subserve that end, wholly 
ignoring any claim which they might be supposed to have upon him 
as their Creator. And, to complete and give consistency to this view 
of the divine character and government, add a discourse on the glory of 
God, and the joy of his saints in the sufferings of the finally lost, — 
sufferings which he had predetermined, and rendered escape from 
impossible. Let all this, I say, be told to a man such as I have sup- 
posed, and what effect would it be likely to have on him ? If he 
received it as the simple teaching of the Scriptures, might it not lead 
him to question their authority? Would it be strange if his con- 
fidence in them, as a revelation from Heaven, should be shaken by 
it ? — Prof. George I. Chace, LL.D. : The Relation of Divine 
Providence to Physical Laws, pp. 51, 53, 55. 

It is beyond dispute, we suppose, that the opinions of men lie at 
the root of their characters. All beliefs, — living beliefs, of course, 
we mean, — beliefs that are honestly and heartily held, that are more 
than hypotheses and speculations and passive consents, — work and 
are productive. Their sap circulates in every part of the man, and puts 
forth the leaves and flowers of correspondent sentiments and habits. 
Hence there is no form of doctrine that has not its own style of reli- 
gion, — a style that is not arbitrary or fortuitous, but the genuine 
offspring of its source, and showing its parentage in its qualities. A 
creed is a die; and living men are the coinage, and show, in the image 
and superscription they bear, the impress of its face. If it does not 
impress itself, and multiply living copies in the sphere it fills, it is 
dead : it is only so many words, not alive by being taken up into a 
living human spirit, and held by its grasp into such close contact with 
its substance as to have opportunity to stamp its mark upon the 
yielding mass. The mixed multitude that hang upon the skirts of 
any form of doctrine, and are content to wear its name and livery, are 
not believers. The probability is that they do not know what it is 
intellectually ; and, if they do, they keep it too far from them to feel 
its power. But beliefs, real, genuine, sincere beliefs, are powerful. 
The human soul is in their hands like wax ; and the life, in its prevail- 
ing sentiments and ways, is the seal that testifies at once the pressure 
and the conformation. False beliefs will make false lives, some pretence 
of goodness, which is not a real goodness, but a fault sanctified by 
the authority of religion. — Church Review for April, 1854; voL vii 
p. 73. 



RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQUIRY. 131 



8ECT. II. — THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQU1B t. 

The inquiry of truth is the sovereign good of human nature. — Lord Bacon. 
Study earnestly ; learn willingly ; resist no light ; neglect no truth. — Rich. Baxteb 

[John Robinson] charged us, before God and his blessed angels, 
to follow him no further than he followed Christ ; and, if God should 
reveal any thing to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready 
to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministry ; for 
he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break 
forth out of his holy word. He took occasion also miserably to 
bewail the state and condition of the reformed churches, who were 
come to a period in religion, and would go no further than the instru- 
ments of their Reformation. As, for example, the Lutherans : they 
could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw ; for whatever part 
of God's will he had further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they 
will rather die than embrace it. And so also, saith he, you see the 
Calvinists : they stick where he left them, — a misery much to be 
lamented ; for though they were precious shining lights in their times, 
yet God had not revealed his whole will to them ; and were they now 
living, saith he, they would be as ready and willing to embrace further 
light as that they had received. Here also he put us in mind of our 
church covenant, at least that part of it whereby we promise and 
covenant with God, and one with another, to receive whatsoever light 
or truth shall be made known to us from his written word j but withal 
exhorted us to take heed what we received for truth, and well to 
examine and compare it and weigh it with other Scriptures of truth 
before we received it. For, saith he, it is not possible the Christian 
world should come so lately out of such thick antichristian darkness, 
and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once. - 
Edward Winslow : Brief Nairation, Lond. 1646 ; in Young's 
Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, pp. 396-7. 

• These noble sentiments are taken from a report of the farewell addresb 
made by John Robinson, in the year 1620, to those members of his church 
who were about to depart from Holland for the purpose of seeking a home 
in the wildernesses of the New World, where they might enjoy the privi- 
leges of religious freedom. The narrator, Governor Winslow, was present 
at the delivery of the discourse. - . 



132 RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQUIRY. 

Let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied 
moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be 
too well studied in the book of God's word or in the book of God's 
works, — divinity or philosophy ; but rather let men endeavor an 
endless progress or proficience in both. Only let men beware, that 
they apply both to charity, and not to swelling ; to use, and not to 
ostentation ; and, again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound 
these learnings together. — Lord Bacon : Advancement of Learning, 
book i. ; in Works, vol. i. p. 164. 

The old sceptics that never would profess that they had found a 
truth, yet showed the best way to search for any, when they doubted 
as well of what those of the dogmatical sects too credulously received 
for infallible principles, as they did of the newest conclusions. They 
were indeed, questionless, too nice, and deceived themselves with the 
nimbleness of their own sophisms, that permitted no kind of esta- 
blished truth. But, plainly, he that avoids their disputing levity, yet, 
being able, takes to himself their liberty of inquiry, is in the only way 
that in all kinds of studies leads and lies open even to the sanctuary 
of truth ; while others, that are servile to common opinion and vulgar 
suppositions, can rarely hope to be admitted nearer than into the base 
court of her temple, which too speciously often counterfeits her inmost 
sanctuary. — John Selden : History of Tithes. 

If you must never change your first opinions or apprehensions, how 
will you grow in understanding ? Will you be no wiser at age than 
you were at childhood, and after long study and experience than you 
were before? Nature and grace do tend to increase. Indeed, if 
you should be never so peremptory in your opinions, you cannot 
resolve to hold them to the end; for light is powerful, and may 
change you, whether you will or no : you cannot tell what that light 
will do, which you never saw. But prejudice will make you resist the 
light, and make it harder for you to understand. I speak this upon 
much experience and observation. Our first, unripe apprehensions 
of things will certainly be greatly changed, if we are studious, and of 
improved understandings. . . . For my own part, my judgment is 
altered from many of my youthful, confident apprehensions; and, 
where it holdeth the same conclusion, it rejecteth abundance of the 
arguments, as vain, which once it rested in. And where I keep to 
the same conclusions and arguments, my apprehension of them is 
not the same, but I see more satisfying light in many things which 1 
took but upon trust before. And if I had resolved to hold to all my 



' 



RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQUIRY. 133 



first opinions, I must have forborne most of my studies, and lost much 
truth, which I have discovered, and not made that my own which 1 

did hold ; and I must have resolved to live and die a child 

Ignorance, and ungrounded or ill-grounded persuasions in matters 
of religion, are the cause that abundance of people delude themselves 
with the empty name and dead profession of a faith and religion which 
they were never indeed possessed of. I know there are low degrees 
of knowledge, comparatively, in many that are true believers ; and that 
there may be much love and holiness where knowledge is very small 
or narrow as to the objective extent of it ; and that there is a know- 
ledge that puffeth up, while charity edifieth ; and that, in many that 
have the narrower knowledge, there may be the fastest faith and 
adherence to the truth, which will conquer in the time of trial. But 
yet I must tell you, that the religion which you profess is not indeed 
your own religion, if you know not what it is, and know not in some 
measure the true grounds and reasons why you should be of that 
religion. If you have only learned to say your creed, or repeat the 
words of Christian doctrine, while you do not truly understand 
the sense; or if you have no better reasons why you profess the 
Christian faith than the custom of the country, or the command of 
princes or governors, or the opinion of your teachers, or the example 
of your parents, friends, or neighbors, — you are not Christians in- 
deed. You have a human belief or opinion, which objectively is 
true ; but, subjectively in yourselves, you have no true, divine belief. — 
Richard Baxter : Christian Directory ; in Practical Works, vol. ii. 
pp. 129, 170. 

Freedom of inquiry is equally open to you and to myself: it is 
equally laudable in us, when conducted with impartiality and decorum ; 
and it must equally tend to the enlargement of knowledge and the 
improvement of virtue, while our sincerity does not betray us into 
precipitation, and while our zeal does not stifle within us the amiable 
and salutary sentiments of mutual forbearance. Upon the points in 
which we dissent from each other, arguments will always secure the 
attention of the wise and good; whereas invective must disgrace 

the cause which we may respectively wish to support 

Freedom of inquiry in private persons, when far extended, and quite 
unshackled by artificial restraints, is favorable to the discovery of truth, 
and, through the progressive influence of truth upon practice, is even- 
tually conducive to the best interests of society. — Dr. Samuel Parr : 
Works, voL iii. pp. 301-2; and vol. iv. pp. 541-2. 

12 



134 RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQUIRY. 

The only means by which religious knowledge can be advanced is 
freedom of inquiry. An opinion is not therefore false because it con- 
tradicts received notions ; but, whether true or false, let it be submitted 
to a fair examination. Truth must, in the end, be a gainer by it, and 
appear with the greater evidence. — Bishop Lowth : Visitation Ser. 

When the right of unlimited inquiry is exerted, the human facul- 
ties will be upon the advance : where it is relinquished, they will be 
of necessity at a stand, and will probably decline. — Robert Hall : 
•Apology for the Freedom of the Press ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 52. 

Truth is every man's concernment, every man's right, and every 
man's most necessary possession. . . . If every man be obliged, as he 
will answer it to God, to possess himself of truth, he must be free ; — 
free not only to think, but to speak ; free to move ; free to go in 
quest of truth ; free to bring it home ; free to confer with his fellows 
concerning it ; and free to impart what he has acquired. — Isaac 
Taylor : Lectures on Spiritual Christianity, pp. 57-8. 

It is surely the birthright of every human being to think for him- 
self. He is amenable alone to conscience and to God for his religious 
sentiments ; and whoever attempts to legislate for the free-born soul, 
and coerce the faith of another, is perpetrating one of the most detest- 
able of crimes, robbing man of his liberty, and God of his authority. 
In such a case, submission to man is treason against Heaven. — 
Dr. F. A. Cox : Life of Melancthon, p. 280. 

Reason and Scripture concur in teaching, that it is at once the 
privilege and the duty of every man to investigate the truth for him- 
self; to employ on religion, as on other subjects, the mental faculties 
which his Maker has bestowed on him, and the bestowal of which is a 
sufficient indication that they were intended to be exercised. . . . How 
monstrous, then, and intolerable the tyranny of those who demand a 
dominion disclaimed by apostles ! Any scheme, indeed, which inter- 
feres with the prerogative of every individual to judge for himself in 
matters of religion, is at once irrational and impious ; — irrational, as 
prohibiting the employment of reason on the most momentous of all 
subjects, and turning man into a brute ; and impious, as destructive of 
the very nature of religion, as rendering it not " a reasonable service," 
a mental employment, a homage rendered with " the understanding 
and the spirit," and suited to the nature of the Being to whom it is 
rendered, and of the being who renders it, but a mere bodily service, 
a mechanical exercise. — Dr. Robert Balmer : The Saipture Prin* 
avles of Unity ; in Essays on Christian Union, p. 32. 



JtlGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQUIRY. 135 

We are to seek and search, not with our eyes half clcsed, as though 
we were fearful lest we should see too much of truth, — lest we should 
look beyond God, into a region where God is not. In this respect 
also, seeing that we have such a High Priest, who himself is passed 
into the heavens, we may approach boldly to the temple of wisdom ; 
for he who has delivered our hearts and souls has also delivered our 
minds from the bondage of earth. Therefore let no man say to the 
waves of thought, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." — Julius 
Charles Hare : The Victory of Faith, pp. 59, 60. 

We may learn from our Lord's appeal to miraculous proofs, as the 
foundation of his claim to authority, how great is the mistake of those 
who imagine that Christian faith consists in an uninquiring acquiescence, 
without any reason for it ; or that at least there is the more virtue in a 
man's faith, the less it is founded on evidence. . . . The faith which 
Jesus and the apostles commended in their hearers consisted in a 
readiness to listen fairly to what was said, in an ingenuous openness to 
conviction, and in an humble acquiescence in what they had good 
ground for believing to have come from God, however adverse to their 
prejudices and wishes, and habits of thought ; in a firm trust in what 
they were rationally convinced God had promised, however strange, and 
foreign from their expectations and conjectures. And yet there have 
been persons in various ages of the church — and the present is not 
without them — who represent Christian faith as a thing not merely 
different from this, but even opposite to it. A man's determination 
to adhere to the religion of his fathers, merely on the ground that it 
was theirs, and that it has long existed, and that he has been assured 
by persons superior to him in rank, and in presumed learning, that the 
authority of the Bible, and the meaning of it, are such as they tell 
him, — this has been represented as the most perfect Christian faith ! 
Such grounds for adhering to a religion have been described as not 
merely sufficient for the most unlearned classes, not merely as the 
utmost these are capable of attaining, but as absolutely the best ; as 
better than the most rational conviction of a cultivated understanding, 
that has long been sedulously occupied in " proving all things, and 
holding fast that which is right." Now, this kind of (falsely called) 
faith, whose usurped title serves to deceive the unthinking, is precisely 
what is characterized in Scripture as want of faith. For I need hardly 
remind the reader, that the unbelieving Jews and Pagans of old were 
those who rejected the " many infallible proofs " which God set before 
them, because thev had resolved to adhere, at all hazards, to the creed 



\ 



136 RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQUIRY. 



of their fathers, and to take the word of their chief priests or civi 
magistrates as decisive, and to stop their ears against all evidence, 
and drown reason by clamor. — Archbishop Whately : Essays on 
Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 125-9. 

There is a wide difference in the practical activity of a truth pas- 
sively acquiesced in, and one attained by a process of inquiry and 
reflection. The hold of the former upon the understanding and the 
heart is feeble and fitful, compared with the tenure of that which is 
valued as the result of toil, the achievement of the understanding, the 
happy settlement of vexed questions whose agitation has roused every 
faculty of the mind, and stirred every feeling of the heart. The great 
multitude, who assent to the authority of Scripture because they know 
no reason to the contrary, remain, as we see every day, to a most 
lamentable extent uninfluenced by its teachings, utterly heedless of its 
solemn declarations. But when did a man become a Christian from 
investigation of the claims of Christianity, without bowing his mind 
and soul to its authority? — Dr. T. E. Bond, jun., in Methodist 
Quarterly Review for April, 1853 ; fourth series, vol. v. p. 259. 

Why has he [our Master] given us the principle of intellectual 
curiosity ? Most certainly that he might stimulate us in the path of 
intellectual and religious knowledge. If we stifle this curiosity, if we 
bury it up, if we have not an enthusiasm even, in the occupying of all 
the talents with which God has endued us, then we are not conse- 
crating ourselves to him. We do not give him our best offerings. 
We withhold the freshest fruits. — B. B. Edwards : Writings, vol. h. 
p. 477. 

God has written upon our minds the ineffaceable law that they 
search after the truth, whatever, wherever it be, however arduous the 
toil for it, whithersoever it may lead. Let it come. Even if it should 
promise nothing to the utilitarian, there are yet within us the mirabiles 
amores to find it out. A sound heart is alive with this curiosity, and 
will not retain its health while its aspirations are rebuffed. It gives 
no unbroken peace to the man who thwarts his reasoning instincts \ 
for, amid all its conflicting demands, it is at times importunate for a 
reasonable belief. When it is famished by an idle intellect, it loses 
its tone, becomes bigoted rather than inquisitive, and takes up with 
theological fancies which reduce it still lower. When it is fed by an 
inquiring mind, it is enlivened, and reaches out for an expanded 
faith. — Edwards A. Park : Theology of the Intellect and of th* 
Feelings ; in Bibliotlieca Sacra for July, 1850 j vol. vii. p. 543. 



RIGHT AND DUTY OF FREE INQUIRY. 137 

Christ came to put an end to hereditary faith, — to make each 
man s belief original and independent with himself, directly drawn 
from the only source of Christian doctrine and practice. Nothing is 
more certain than that religion is a subject upon which all persons are 
under obligations the most solemn to deliberate, choose, and act for 
themselves. Freedom of inquiry is a high privilege, as safe for the 
masses as for individuals ; and this boon Christ procured for all our 
race. He never designed that a few should lead, and that the 
multitude should be compelled to follow in their steps. But what 
are the spirit and language of many professed teachers of Christianity ? 
" Out of my creed there is no orthodoxy : out of my church there is 
no salvation." But, fortunately, the days of such priestly arrogance 

are numbered It is the divine prerogative of truth to restore 

the original sovereignty of the best powers, and the symmetrical 
development of alL In this matter, there is no question of more or 
less ; freedom exists, or it does not ; and it is obvious that the liberty 
of a rational being consists precisely in the free use of the faculties 
inherent in his nature, and of all his faculties or powers, without 
exception or extravagance. . . . Mental freedom is the only true free- 
dom, the foundation of all other liberty, without which an immortal 
creature is a degraded slave, and not the less a vassal because his 
chains may chance to be made of gold. 

" For what is freedom but the unfettered use 
Of all the powers which God for use hath given ? n 

. . . The intellectual power of man proves that there must be an object 
suitable for its exercise, and demanding its study. This object is truth, 
the knowledge of something real, and consists in the exact understand- 
ing of the highest realities that exist. This is the grand boon proffered 
to us here and in a more exalted life. — E. L, Magoon : Republican 
Christianity, pp. 244, 355-6. 



In this and the other sections of the present chapter, we should hfcia 
been glad to make a few extracts from " Essays on the Formation and 
Publication of Opinions, and on the Pursuit of Truth, by Samuel Bailey; m 
but, uncertain as to the theological standing of the author, we can only 
recommend to the attentive perusal of the reader the most beautiful and inte • 
resting productions that have perhaps ever been written on these subjects. 
They are discussed from a philosophical point of view ; but the sentiments 
maintained seem to harmonize with the most enlarged views of the gospel, 
and are admirably calculated to produce feelings of amity between all the 
professing disciples of Jesus Christ. 

12* 






138 REQUISITES IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



SECT. III. — DISPOSITIONS AND MEANS REQUISITE IN THE SEARCH 
AFTER TRUTH. 

Imagination's airy wing repress ; 
Lock up thy senses ; let no passion stir ; 
Wake all to reason ; let her reign alone ; 
Then, in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth 
Of nature's silence, midnight, thus inquire. 

Edward Younq. 

Diligence and care in obtaining the best guides and the most con- 
venient assistances, prayer, and modesty of spirit, simplicity of purposes 
and intentions, humility and aptness to learn, and a peaceable disposi- 
tion, are necessary to finding out truths, because they are parts of good 
life, without which our truths will do us little advantage, and our errors 
have no excuse. But with these dispositions, as he is sure to find 
out all that is necessary, so what truth he inculpably misses of he is 
sure is therefore not necessary, because he could not find it when he 
did his best and his most innocent endeavors. — Jeremy Taylor : 
IAberty of Prophesying, sect. xii. 6 ; in Works, vol. vii. p. 1 16. 

1. [In prosecuting your inquiries] Begin at the greatest, most 
evident, certain and necessary truths, and so proceed orderly to the 
knowledge of the less by the help of these. If you begin at those 
truths which spring out of greater common truths, and know not the 
premises while you plead for the conclusion, you abuse your reason, 
and lose the truth and your labor both. — 2. The two first things 
which you are to learn are what man is and what God is. — 3. Having 
soundly understood the principles of religion, tr) all the subsequent 
truths thereby, and receive nothing as truth that is certainly inconsist- 
ent with any of these principles. — 4. Believe nothing which certainly 
contradicteth the end of all religion. If it be a natural or necessary 
tendency to ungodliness, against the love of God, or against a holy and 
heavenly mind and conversation, it cannot be truth, whatever it pre- 
tend. — 5. Be sure to distinguish well betwixt revealed and unrevealed 
things. — 6. Be a careful and accurate, though not a vain, distinguisher ; 
and suffer not ambiguity and confusion to deceive you. It is not only 
in many words, but in one word or syllable, that so much ambiguity 
and confusion may be contained as may make a long dispute to be but 
a vain and ridiculous wrangling. — 7. Therefore be specially suspicious 
of metaphors, as being all but ambiguities till an explication hath fixed 



REQUISITES IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 139 

or determined the sense. — 13. Plead not uncertainties against cer- 
tainties, but make certain points the measure to try the uncertain by. 
■ — 14. Plead not the darker texts of Scripture against those that are 
more plain and clear, nor a few texts against many that are as plain ; 
for that which is interpreted against the most plain and frequent 
expressions of the same Scripture is certainly misinterpreted. — 
21. In controversies which depend most upon skill in the languages, 
philosophy, or other parts of common learning, prefer the judgment of 
a few that are the most learned in those matters, before the judgment 
of the most ancient, or the most godly, or of the greatest numbers, 
even whole churches, that are unlearned. Every man is most to be 
regarded in the matters which he is best acquainted with. — 22. In 
controversies of great difficulty where divines themselves are disagreed, 
and a clear and piercing wit is necessary, regard more the judgment 
of a few acute, judicious, well-studied divines that are well versed in 
those controversies, than of a multitude of dull and common wits that 
think to carry it by the reputation of their number. — 23. In all con- 
tentions, hold close to that which all sides are agreed on. — 24. Take 
nothing as necessary to salvation in point of faith, which the universal 
church in every age since Christ did not receive. — 25. Be not borne 
down by the censoriousness of any to overrun your own understanding 
and the truth, and to comply with them in their errors and extremes. 
— 26. Doubt not of well-proved truths, for every difficulty that appear- 
eth against them. — Richard Baxter : Christian Directory ; in 
Practical Works, vol v. pp. 139-50. 

These directions from Baxter have been epitomized; and others, less 
appropriate, entirely omitted. But it would scarcely be doing justice to the 
piety of this great man to withhold an excellent passage which occurs in 
vol. viii. pp. 29, 30: " Come to the word [the Scripture] in meekness and 
humility, with a teachable frame of spirit, and a willingness to know the 
truth, and a resolution to stand to it, and yield to what shall be revealed to 
you ; and beg of God to show you his will, and lead you into the truth ; and 
fou will find that he will be found of them that ask him." 

He that will advance any thing in the finding out of truth must 
6ring to it that traveller's ^difference which the heathen so long since 
recommended to the world. He must not desire it should lie on the 
one side rather than the other, lest his desire that it should, prompt 
him, without just reason, to believe that it does. And so in religion 
too : he that will make a right judgment, what to believe or what to 
practise, must first throw off all prejudice in favor of his own opinion, 






140 REQUISITES IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



or against any others ; and resolve never to be so tied up to any point 
or party as not to be at all times ready impartially to examine whatso- 
ever can reasonably be objected against either. — Archbishop Wake : 
Sermons and Discourses, pp. 17, 18. 

Whatever warmth or heat any may show, it will still remain an 
eternal truth, that a calm temper of mind, and a meek and charitable 
disposition of soul, are qualifications absolutely necessary either to dis- 
cover truth ourselves, or to judge right of the sentiments and opinions 
of others. That blind and furious transport of mind which we com- 
monly term zeal is of no manner of use, either for the one or the other 
of these purposes, but, on the contrary, very prejudicial in all serious 
inquiries, especially those of religious controversies. — Abridged from 
Le Clerc: Abstract of Dr. Clarke's Polemical Writings, p. 113; 
Lond. 1713. 

Let us divest ourselves of a party spirit. Let us never determine 
an opinion by its agreement or disagreement with what our masters, 
our parents, or our teachers have inculcated, but by its conformity or 
contrariety to the doctrine of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Let us 
never receive or reject a maxim because it favors or opposes our pas- 
sions, but as it agrees with or opposes the laws of that tribunal, the 
bases of which are justice and truth. Let us be fully convinced that 
our chief study should be to know what God determines, and to make 

his commands the only rules of our knowledge and practice 

Truth requires that we should sacrifice precipitancy of judgment 
Few people are capable of this sacrifice : indeed, there are but few 
who do not consider suspension of judgment as a weakness, although 
it is one of the noblest efforts of genius and capacity. In regard to 
religion, people usually make a scruple of conscience of suspending 
their judgments ; yet, in our opinion, a Christian is so much the more 
obliged to do this, by how much more the truths of the gospel sur- 
pass in sublimity and importance all the objects of human- science. I 
forgive this folly in a man educated in superstition, who is threatened 
with eternal damnation, if he reverence certain doctrines, which not 
only he has not examined, but which he is forbidden to examine under 
the same penalty. But that men of learning and piety should imagine 
they have obtained a signal victory over infidelity, and have accredited 
religion, when, by the help of some terrific declamations, they have 
extorted a catechumen's consent, — this is what we could have 
scarcely believed, had we not seen numberless examples of it. A 
truth received without proof is, in regard to us, a kind of falsehood 



: 



REQUISITES IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 141 

Yea, a truth received without evidence is a never-failing source of 
many errors, because a truth received without evidence is founded, in 
regard to us, only on false principles. We must, then, suspend our 
judgments, whatever inclination we may naturally have to determine 
at once, in order to save the attention and labor which a more ample 
discussion of truth would require. — Abridged from James Saurin : 
Sewrwns, vol. i. pp. 44-5, 136. 

The Scriptures direct us to inquire into the foundation of the doc- 
trines proposed to our acceptance ; and indeed, without the exercise 
of our reason, I know not how we could understand or adopt the 
plainest doctrines of Christianity. But it is of much importance to 
have right dispositions of mind at the time of our inquiry. Such 
are humility, modesty, docility, and a sincere desire to improve. — 
Vicesimus Knox : Sermons ; in Works, vol. vi. p. 120. 

We ought to have an honest desire after light ; and, if we have the 
desire, it will not remain unproductive. . . . We ought to have a habit 
of prayer conjoined with a habit of inquiry; and to this more will be 
given. ... It is through the avenues of a desirous heart and of an 
exercised understanding, and of sustained attention, and of faculties in 
quest of truth, and laboring after the possession of it, that God sends 
into the mind his promised manifestations. . . . He who without prayer 
looks confidently forward to success as the fruit of his own investiga- 
tions is not walking humbly with God. — Dr. Thomas Chalmers » 
Sermons on the Depravity of Human Nature; in Select Works, 
vol. iv. pp. 27-8. 

The Scriptures themselves will serve to explain their own meaning 
in the most essential points, if studied, under the guidance of God's 
Holy Spirit, with an humble, patient, diligent, and candid mind. And 
such a mind, even without extensive learning or great ability, will be 
more enlightened by them than the most learned or the most inge- 
nious, if led away by conceited and presumptuous fancies, and given 
up to indolent prejudice, or blinded by spiritual pride, or the spirit of 
party. — Archbishop Whately: Sermons on Various Subjects, 
pp. 50-1. 

Inquiry in theology, as in every thing else, to be fruitful and in- 
structive, must be undogmatic, — must strive, apart from hypothesis 
and all later superpositions, to ascend to the truth, as it appears in 
its original sources, or in its successive forms throughout the history 
of the church. To have recourse either to the Bible itself, or the 
writings of the Fathers, in a different spirit, and to seek in them, not 






142 REQUISITES IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH 

simply for the truth in its corresponding and appropriate expression, 
but in some favorite dogmatic form of a subsequent age, J3 clearly at 
once an historical and unphilosophical process, in which much inge- 
nuity may be displayed, but by which truth can never be elicited and 
advanced. It is tainted with the worst vice of the old method of 
physical inquiry, from which Bacon initiated our deliverance ; making, 
as it does, the limited ideas and idol formulas of some one age the 
measure of that objective truth which transcends them all. — North 
British Review for May, 1853 ; Amer. edit. vol. xiv. p. 49. 

In the formation of your own opinions, ... be independent; use 
your own reason, your own senses, your own Bible. Be untrammeled ; 
throw off the chains and fetters which compel so many minds to believe 
onl) what they are told to believe, and to walk intellectually and 
morally in paths marked out for them by human teachers. ... Be 
modest. It is the characteristic of a weak mind to be dogmatical and 
positive. Such a mind makes up in dogged determination to believe 
what it wants in evidence. Come to your conclusions cautiously, and 
take care that your belief covers no more ground than your proofs. 
Do not dispute about what you do not understand, nor push your 
investigations beyond the boundaries of human knowledge. Men are 
often sadly perplexed with difficulties which arise from the simple 
fact that they have got beyond their depth. — Jacob Abbott : The 
Corner-stone, pp. 357-8. 



The principles which have been recommended in this and the two pre- 
ceding sections are ostensibly held by all Protestants, whether Trinitarian 
or Unitarian. But they are contravened by parents, teachers, and divines, 
when they would quench the love of truth and of investigation, natural to 
honest and noble minds, by grounding belief on the authority of parentage, 
of the church, or of celebrated men ; by misrepresenting the sentiments and 
motives of those who differ from them in opinion ; by instilling the notion, 
that no genuine faith, no sincere piety, no well-grounded hope of heaven, 
can be found beyond the pale of their own narrow creed ; in fine, by virtually 
declaring, " Inquire, — but never doubt; search the Scriptures — to n"nd our 
views; read with the understanding — that we are right; reason with the 
conviction — that all else are wrong. Your interests in this world, and your 
salvation in the next, depend on the unconditional surrender of your under- 
standings to the faith we prescribe, — on the unhesitating rejection of all 
contrary opinions." 

These and other impediments to free inquiry, and to the reception of 
views of truth founded on individual conviction, will be treated of in th* 
following section. 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 143 



SECT. IV. — HINDRANCES TO FREE INQUIRY, AND TO THE RECEPTION 
AND SPREAD OF TRUTH. 

We pray, 
Above all things, Lord, that all men be free 

From bondage, 

The bondage of religious bigotry 
And bald antiquity, servility 
Of thought or speech. 

P. J. Bailey. 

§ 1. Early Prejudices. 

Another great cause of pretended false knowledge and confidence 
is the unhappy prejudices which our minds contract even in our child- 
hood, before we have time and wit and conscience to try things by true 
deliberation. Children and youth must receive much upon trust, or 
else they can learn nothing ; but then they have not wit to proportion 
their apprehensions to the evidence, whether of credibility or certainty ; 
and so fame and tradition and education, and the country's vote, do 
become the ordinary parents of many lies; and folly maketh us to 
fasten so fearlessly in our first apprehensions, that they keep open the 
door to abundance [of] more falsehoods ; and it must be clear teachers, 
or great, impartial studies, of a self-denying mind, with a great bless- 
ing of God, that must deliver us from prejudice, and undeceive us. — 
Richard Baxter : Knowledge and Love Compared ; in Practical 
Works, vol. xv. pp. 156-7. 

It is no small work to examine the truth, when we arrive at an age 
capable of discussion. The fundamental points of religion, I grant, lie 
in the Scriptures clear and perspicuous, and within the comprehension 
of all who choose to attend to them ; but when we pass from infancy 
to manhood, and arrive at an age in which reason seems mature, we 
find ourselves covered with a veil, which either hides objects from us, or 
disfigures them. The public discourses we have heard in favor of the 
sect in which we were educated, the inveterate hatred we have for all 
others who hold principles opposite to ours, the frightful portraits that 
are drawn before our eyes of the perils we must encounter if we depart 
from the way we have been brought up in, the impressions made upon 
us by the examples and decisions of our parents and masters and 
teachers, the bad taste of those who had the care of our education, 
and who prevented our acquiring that most noble disposition,- without 



144 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

which it is impossible ever to be a true philosopher or a real Christian, 
— I mean that of suspending our judgment on subjects not sufficiently 
proved, — from all this arise clouds that render the truth inaccessible, 
and which the world cannot dissipate. We do not say that natural 
talents or supernatural assistance are wanting : we are fully convinced 
that God will never give up to final error any man who does all in his 
power to understand the truth. But the world are incapable of this 
work. Why ? Because all the world, except a few, hate labor and 
meditation in regard to the subjects which respect another life ; be- 
cause all the world would choose rather to attach themselves to what 
regards their temporal interests than to the great interest of eternal 
happiness ; because all the world like better to suppose the principles 
imbibed in their childhood true, than to impose on themselves the 
task of weighing them anew in the balance of a sound and severe 
reason ; because all the world have an invincible aversion to suppose, 
that, when they are arrived at manhood, they have almost lost their 
time in some respects, and that, when they leave school, they begin to 
be capable of instruction. — James Saurin : Sermons, vol. ii. p. 29. 

Many persons, not generally uninquiring or uncandid, or incom- 
petent to reason accurately, have yet been so early accustomed to take 
for granted, and assent to on authority, certain particular points, that 
they afterwards adhere to the belief so formed, rather from association 
than on evidence. — Archbishop Whately : Essays on Difficulties 
in PauVs Writings, p. 219. 

One great source of erroneous impressions on all subjects is the 
power of influences exerted in early life, and which are sometimes so 
strong as utterly to bid defiance to all argument. . . . This influence 
of early associations has more power than all other causes put together, 
in the formation of religious opinions. The children of Mahometans 
become Mahometans themselves, without arguments in favor of the 
Prophet ; and, in the Christian world, religious opinions are hereditary, 
and pass down, with exceptions comparatively few and rare, from father 
to son; so that Popery and Protestantism, Episcopacy and Dissent, 
and Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist opinions, occupy, in the main, 
the same ground, from generation to generation. . . . Every intelli- 
gent observer of the human mind, and especially of the habits and 
susceptibilities of childhood, will at once admit, that other influences 
than those of argument are the efficient ones in the production of 
these almost universal effects. — Jacob Abbott : The Corner-stone, 
pp. 290-2. 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 145 

{ 2. Prostration of the Judgment to Authority. 

Is it not blameworthy in us, and a proof of carnality, ... to give up 
our judgment to be wholly guided by the writings of Luther or Cabin, 
or of any other mortal man whatsoever ? Worthy instruments they 
were, both of them, of God's glory, and such as did excellent service to 
the church in their times, whereof we yet find the benefit ; and we are 
unthankful if we do not bless God for it : and therefore it is an unsavory 
thing for any man to gird at their names, whose memories ought to be 
precious. But yet were they not men ? Had they received the Spirit 
in the fulness of it, and not by measure ? Knew they otherwise than in 
part, or prophesied otherwise than in part ? Might they not in many 
things, and they not in some things, mistake and err ? Howsoever, 
the apostle's interrogatories are unanswerable. What saith he ? " Was 
Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul ? " 
Even so, was either Luther or Calvin crucified for you ? Or were ye 
baptized into the name of Luther or Calvin, or any other man, that 
any one of you should say, I am of Luther ; or any other, I am of 
Calvin ; and I of him, and I of him ? What is Calvin or Luther • • . 
but " ministers by whom ye believed ; " that is to say, instruments, but 
not lords, of your belief ? — Bishop Sanderson : Thirty five Ser- 
mons, p. 295 ; Lond. 1681, seventh edit. 

There are many among us so strangely engaged by false principles 
to an ill cause, that it is in vain to offer them the clearest arguments to 
convince them. If you bring them Scripture, it is true that must be 
heard ; but then, be it never so plain, they are not competent judges 
of the meaning of it ; and they durst not trust their own interpretation 
to tell them that Abraham begat Isaac, if the church should think 
fit to expound it otherwise. ... If you offer them reason as clear as 
the plainest demonstration, why, that were well j but still private reason 
may err, and the church cannot . . . Sense, reason, Scripture, all are 
of no force against this one prejudice of their church's authority. — 
Archbishop Wake : Sermons and Discourses, pp. 18, 19. 

Implicit faith has been sometimes ludicrously styled fides carbonaria, 
from the noted story of one who, on examining an ignorant collier on 
his religious principles, asked him what it was that he believed. He 
answered, " 1 believe what the church believes." The other rejoined, 
" What, then, does the church believe ? " He replied readily, " The 
church believes what I believe." The other, desirous if possible to 
bring him to particulars, once more resumes his inquiry : " Tell me, 

13 






146 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

then, I pray you, what it is which you and the church both believe." 
The only answer the collier could give was, "Why trul\, sir, the 
church and I both — believe the same thing." This is implicit faith 
in perfection, and, in the estimation of some celebrated doctors, the 
sum of necessary and saving knowledge in a Christian. — Dr. George 
Campbell : Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, Leet. 23. 

Deference to great names is a sentiment which it would be base to 
attempt to eradicate, and impossible were it attempted. But, like 
other offsprings of the mind, it is at first rude and ill-shapen. It makes 
no selection, no discrimination ; it retains the impress of its original 
entire, just as it was made ; it is a vague, undistinguishing admiration, 
which consecrates in a mass all the errors and deformities, along with 
the real excellences, of its object. Time only, the justest of all critics, 
gives it correctness and proportion, and converts what is at first merely 
the action of a great upon an inferior mind into an enlightened and 
impartial estimate of distinguished worth. — Robert Hall : Reply 
to the Rev. Joseph Kinghorn ; in Works, vol. i. p. 502. 

Think you, my brethren, that there is no Popery among you ? Is 
there no taking of your religion upon trust from another, when you 
should draw it fresh and unsullied from the fountain-head of inspira- 
tion? Do you ever dare to bring your favorite minister to the 
tribunal of the word ? or would you tremble at the presumption of 
such an attempt ; so that the hearing of the word carries a greater 
authority over your mind than the reading of the word ? Now, this 
want of daring, this trembling at the very idea of a dissent from your 
minister, this indolent acquiescence in his doctrine, is just calling 
another man master; it is putting the authority of man over the 
authority of God ; it is throwing yourself into a prostrate attitude at 
the footstool of human infallibility. It is not just kissing the toe of 
reverence ; but it is the profounder degradation of the mind, and of all 
its faculties. It is said that Papists worship saints ; but have we no 
consecrated names in the annals of Reformation, — no worthies who 
hold too commanding a place in the remembrance and affection of 
Protestants ? Are there no departed theologians, whose works hold too 
domineering an ascendency over the faith and practice of Christians ? 
Do we not bend the understanding before the volumes of favorite 
authors, and do a homage to those representations of the minds of the 
men of other days which should be exclusively given to the repre- 
sentation of the mind of the Spirit, as put down in the book of the 
Spirit's revelation ? It is right that each of us should give the contri* 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 147 

bution of his own talents and his own learning to this most interesting 
cause ; but let the great drift of our argument be to prop the authority 
of the Bible, and to turn the eye of earnestness upon its pages. — 
Abridged from Dr. Thomas Chalmers : Select Works, vol. iv. 
pp. 244-5. 

Since men really cannot believe or disbelieve without something 
before the mind which it takes for evidence, the first dictate of a sound 
conscience would be to examine that evidence carefully, lest we should 
be deceived j so that following conscience, in this sense, would come 
to the same thing as following reason. But what these men mean by 
conscience is certain " feelings of awe and reverence and admiration," 
and blind submission to authority, which they are pleased to call by 
that name ; and the course they mean to recommend is taking for 
evidence of the truth of a religious system its apparent fitness for 
gratifying such feelings. The difference, then, between them and us 
is just this : we demand in religious matters the same sort of evidence 
as the known laws of reason and the common experience of mankind 
require as the only adequate proof in other matters. They substitute 
for such proof a sort of evidence in which impartial reason can discover 
no cogency, and upon which they would themselves refuse to act in the 
ordinary affairs of life. For though they will tell you that natural 
piety requires a man to abide by the creed of an ignorant or doting 
parent or pastor, yet you will rarely find them ready to purchase a 
blind horse, or sell out stock at a disadvantage, or exchange a good 
farm for a had one, in deference to the same venerable authority. — 
Archbishop Whately : Cautions for the Times, p. 333-4. 

The founders of almost every denomination have something of 
attraction about them. Generally they have been men of worth and 
of public notoriety. They were raised up, it might be, in a dark 
and declining age, and had both a great work to do, and grace given 
them to do it. While they were men of signal excellence, yet still 
they were men ; and every one of them had failings, and peculiarities 
of manners and habits, which made them singular. They have left 
their name upon their sect; and they have stamped it, to a certain 

extent, with their own features What renders the worship — 

for I can call it by no other name — of the early Reformers, and of the 
heads of any religious party, now peculiarly unreasonable, is the fact, 
that, while they were excellent men, they were very lately come out 
of the bosom of the church of Rome, and had their lot cast in a some- 
what dark and intolerant age. To set them up as the jraragons of 






148 v IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT 01 TRUTH. 

excellence as to every point of church order is to suppose, that the 
religious world, amid the light and civilization of modern times, has 
been standing still ; and that the dust of ages has not been wiped off, 
in the course of centuries, from the church of Christ. As time rolls 
on, and society improves, the church is maturing in experience, and 
has higher advantages for studying the mind of Christ, and perceiving 
that the excellent ones of the earth are not confined to any one deno- 
mination. — Dr. Gavin Struthers : Party Spirit ; in Essays on 
Christian Union, pp. 432-5. 

Even whilst not thus erring as to ourselves, we may err, in the like 
spirit of self-exaltation, as to our spiritual leaders, our religious parties 
and partisans, and our chosen models of Christian perfection, and our 
human standards of Christian truth. The second and declining stage 
in the history of every great religious reformation has been thus 
marked. In the first and purer age, the true-hearted leaders forget 
self, and think of the truth only, and of the Master, and of the due 
vindication and honor of these. But, in the next generation, the 
leaders of the generation past have become demigods, and must have 
their funeral monuments erected as having become morally, to their 
disciples, the new Pillars of Hercules, beyond which Truth may not 
travel, nor Research dare to pass with her adventurous foot. . . . We, 
of this land where New England has borne so large and glorious a 
share in leavening the national character, are probably in some danger 
of idolatrous homage to the names of the Puritan Fathers. It is so 
easy and so common an infirmity to let the priest glide from the altar, 
where he only serves, into the very shrine, where he may fill the 
throne ; to make the spiritual guide virtually the spiritual god, and to 
treat those by whom we have believed in Christ as if they were those 
in whom we have believed ; and we thus extol and guard and hallow 
their names instead of God's. — Wm. It. Williams : Lectures on the 
Lord's Prayer, pp. 42-3. 

§ 3. Blind Attachment to Received Opinions. 

Another error ... is a conceit, that, of former opinions or sects, 
lifter variety and examination, the best hath still prevailed, and sup- 
pressed the rest; so as, if a man should begin the labor of a new 
search, he were like to light upon somewhat formerly rejected, and by 
rejection brought into oblivion : as if the multitude, or the wisest, for 
the multitude's sake, were not ready to give passage rather _to tl*at 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 149 

arhich is popular and superficial than to that which is substantial and 
profound. For the truth is, that time seemeth to be of the nature of 
a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and 
blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid. 
— Lord Bacon : Advancement of Learning, book i. ; in Works, vol. i. 
p. 173 ; Phil. edit. 1852. 

The multitude is a bad guide to direct our faith. We will not 
introduce here the famous controversy on this question, whether a 
great number form a presumption in favor of any religion, or whether 
universality be a certain evidence of the true Christian church. How 
often has this question been debated and determined ! How often 
have we proved against one community, which displays the number of 
its professors with so much parade, that, if the pretence were well 
founded, it would operate in favor of Paganism! for Pagans were 
always more numerous than Christians. How often have we told 
them, that, in divers periods of the ancient church, idolatry and idola- 
ters have been enthroned in both the kingdoms of Judah and Israel ! 
How often have we alleged, that, in the time of Jesus Christ, the 
church was described as a " little flock," Luke xii. 32 ; that Heathens 
and Jews were all in league against Christianity at first, and that the 
gospel had only a small number of disciples ! . . . When I say the mul- 
titude is a bad guide in matters of faith, I mean that the manner in 
which most men adhere to truth is not by principles which ought to 
attach them to it, but by a spirit of negligence and prejudice. — 
James Saurin : Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 28-9. 

Though there is doubtless a certain degree of weight in this argu- 
ment [the argument in favor of the Divinity of Christ founded on his 
promise that the Spirit of truth should abide for ever with his follow- 
ers], yet, I think, Robinson rests too much upon it, and repeats it too 
often ; for it is a fact not less certain than melancholy, that an immense 
majority of Christians (ex. gr. all the Russias, all the Christians of Asia, 
and of Africa, and of South America, the larger and more populous 
portions of Poland and of Germany, nine-tenths of France, and all 
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sicily, &c. &c.) have been given up to the most 
despicable and idolatrous superstitions. When Christ comes, shall he 
find faith on the earth ? I say unto you, Nay. — S. T. Coleridge ", 
Literary Remains ; in Works, vol. v. p. 535. 

No man doubts that a strictly universal consent would be a very 
strong argument indeed ; but then, by the very fact of its being dis- 
puted, it ceases to be universal, and general consent is a very different 

13* 






150 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

thing from universal. It becomes, then, the consent of the majority ; 
and we must examine the nature of the minority, and also the peculiar 
nature of the opinions or practices agreed in, before we can decide 
whether general consent be really an argument for or against the truth 
of an opinion. For it has been said, " Woe unto you when all men 
shall speak well of you ; " and then it would be equally true of such a 
generation or generations, that it was, " Woe to that opinion in which 
all men agree." — Dr. Thomas Arnold : Letter 156 ; in Life and 
Correspondence, pp. 297-8. 

It is only an assumption, that universality and ubiquity are made 
the tests of religious doctrine. No universality or ubiquity can make 
that divine which never was such. It is a mere prejudice of veneration 
for antiquity, and the imposing aspect of an unanimous acquiescence 
(if unanimous it really be) which makes us regard that as truth which 
comes so recommended to us. Truth is rather the attribute of the 
few than of the many. The real church of God may be the small 
remnant, scarcely visible amidst the mass of surrounding professors. 
Who, then, shall pronounce any thing to be divine truth, simply because 
it has the marks of having been generally or universally received among 
men? — Bishop Hampden: Bampton Lectures, p. 356. 



Except the prejudices imbibed in early years, there is perhaps no influ- 
ence so powerfully affecting the belief of individuals, as that resulting from 
their intercourse with persons who hold, or who profess to hold, opinions 
of an unvarying stamp, especially in matters of religion ; and who neither 
by word nor action ever intimate the possibility of their being in the wrong. 
These individuals may, at one period of their lives, have been led by satis- 
factory evidence to take views of truth very different, as a whole, from those 
received by a majority of their fellow-Christians. But unless, by the vigor 
of their understandings or by a reiterated attention to the grounds of their 
convictions, they can, when requisite, summon up the reasons for their faith, 
they will, in all probability, insensibly and gradually yield to the counter- 
acting impressions made by the unhesitating credence and dogmatism of the 
majority around them. Even the docility of their dispositions, which formed 
an element in their searching? after truth, may tend to loosen their attach- 
ment to opinions coming into collision with the general current. If such be 
the effect sometimes produced on the minds of those who are not wholly 
insensible to the demands of a faith based on personal investigation, how 
potent must be the desire on the part of others, less prone to inquiry, to 
adept the opinions of the multitude ! 

We do not mean to imply, that the voice of the many should be de- 
spised, when it is uttered from strong and earnest convictions. It may be 
the echo of God's voice as expressed in the Scriptures, and in the heart of 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 15 J 

our common humanity. There is a presumption in its favor, when it speaks 
of great and benignant principles underlying all forms of Christian belief and 
worship : when it is heard alike in the lofty church and the lowly meeting- 
house ; in the meditations of the mystic, and the reasonings of the rationalist; 
in the prayers of the saint, and the theories of the philosopher; in the con- 
verse of the Papist and the Protestant, of the Trinitarian and the Unitarian. 
There is a presumption in its favor, when it speaks of the absolute sove- 
reignty and universal love of the infinite Father; of the impersonation of 
divine power, wisdom, and goodness in the mission and character of God's 
Son; of the responsibleness and immortality of man; of the slavery and 
debasement of sin, the freedom and blessedness of holiness ; of profound 
gratitude and submission to God, deep reverence and love for Christ, kind 
words and good offices towards- all men. The general acknowledgment of 
such principles and doctrines, though more or less obscured by inconsistent 
views and practices, forms a presumption for their essential truth which 
should not be slighted by the boldest of inquirers. But we need not say, 
that the opinions which are wafted down from one age to another, — which 
are strewn over the surface of society and the church, — which play around 
the human brain, but do not reach the heart; or which, if principles of 
action, serve only as stimuli for the display of hostile words and fanatio 
doings, — afford no primci-facie evidence of having truth for the basis on 
which they rest. 

§ 4. Predilections for the Mysterious. 

There is, in truth, a vitiated appetite in our nature for mystery ana 
terror. We are disappointed by simplicity ; we nauseate that which 
is common, and despise every thing which we comprehend. The 
languid mind must gaze at something in the distant ground, half 
visible, half in shade ; an object half pleasing, half terrible ; full of 
promise and full of threat, lovely and hateful, incongruous and impos- 
sible. We are so desirous of involving religion in mystery, that we 
are displeased at finding it so clear in its nature, and so definite in its 
object ; we require a more splendid and magnificent object ; we despise 
the waters of Israel, and pant for Abana and Pharpar, and the mighty 
rivers of Damascus. — Sydney Smith : Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 255-6. 

Pressed by the arguments urged against fleshly views of the sacra- 
ment, intelligent men, who still cherish such views, have, for the most 
part, betaken themselves to a place behind the veil of mystery. " The 
how and why have nothing to do," they tell us, " with such a sacred 
and awful mystery. Unbelief in it is profane ; calling it in question 
is presumptuous ; doubting, even when urged to do so by reason and 
s>ur senses, is criminal." This, and the like, has been and is still said* 






152 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



until the bare repetition of it has almost, of itself, forced it upon the 
minds of the greater mass of nominal Christians. . . • Such suggestions 
are the usual and the last refuge of those who feel that they are driven 
from the field of reasoning and argument. They have this advantage, 
that they are in their alleged form so indefinite and any, that you can- 
not easily find out their true nature, so as to know where or how you 
ean bring forward what is sensible and palpable in opposition to them. 
They satisfy mystics better than argument or reason would ; because 
they obviously suit that trait in their character which is the pre- 
dominating and influential one. Hence the final retreat, the sanctum 
sanctorum of those who have fled from the battle-fields of reason and 
exegesis and argument, is always found to be in mystery. Procul, 
promt, este profani ! Meantime, as a Protestant, I must think that 
it becomes us, on such a point, to be able to give a reason for the 
faith that is in us. No outcry of this nature can induce a man of 
sober judgment to abandon his position. It is the never-failing resort 
of those who have nothing better to say, to betake themselves to cry- 
ing out, — " Mystery ! awful mystery ! It would be profanation to 

make even an attempt at investigation or explanation." Faith — 

I repeat it, I would God it might sink deep into every Christian heart ! 
— faith is believing what is revealed, not believing what is unrevealed 
and impossible. There may be — there are — mysteries, many and 
great, which belong to things and truths connected intimately with 
the gospel. . . . But no true gospel mystery involves a contradiction or 
an absurdity. — Moses Stuart, in Bibliotheca Sacra for May, 1844 ; 
voL i. pp. 267-8 and 278-9. 

Sentiments such as these, though specially opposed to the doctrine of 
Christ's real bodily presence in the Lord's Supper, are well suited to exhibit 
the influence, in general, of a love for the mystical or the mysterious in fore- 
closing the mind against all appeals to reason, and a rational interpretation 
of Scripture. 

I should not deem it necessary to say more, did I not know what 
is the mournful effect upon the human mind of being trained for ages 
to disregard the most sacred and fundamental intellectual and moral 
intuitions, under the plea of faith and mystery. The mind seems to be 
paralyzed and stunned, as if it had been smitten down by a blow, and 
cannot again, in that particular, re-act and rally, and recover the use 
of its powers. Such an effect has been extensively produced on the 
human mind for ages by this result of the discussion under Augustine; 
for, when the plea of any great moral or intellectual intuitions has 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 153 

Oeen once heard, and, after long, earnest, and full debate, rejected, and 
the course of thought has afterwards rolled on in disregard of them 
for subsequent centuries under the guidance of ecclesiastical authority, 
and of the original arguments, in one deep channel, it becomes almost 
impossible to restore the human mind to the vantage-ground on which 
it stood when the original conflict began. — Dr. Edward Beecher : 
Conflict of Ages, pp. 305-6. 

§ 5. Impatience of Doubt, and Aversion to Trouble. 

Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion 
without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways 
of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly 
spoken of by the ancients : the one plain and smooth in the beginning, 
and in the end impassable ; the other rough and troublesome in the 
entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation : 
if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts ; but, if he 
will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. — 
Lord Bacon : Advancement of Learning, book i. ; in Works, vol. i. 
p. 173. 

Christianity being at this time divided into several sects, whereof 
some must necessarily be in an error, may we not therefore place in 
the number of the lazy those persons who, full of all other things 
but the love of the truth, have never carefully examined which of 
these sects is most conformable to the sentiments of the apostles? 
I own that divers other motives might lead them to remain, without 
knowing why themselves, in that party wherein they happened to be 
born, and to condemn all others without vouchsafing to examine their 
tenets ; but, if you remark it well, it will appear that one of the princi- 
ples which occasion this conduct is a certain lazy aversion to the trouble 
of searching after the truth in matters of this kind. — Le Clerc : 
Causes of Incredulity, pp. 101-2, Lond. 1697. 

Any serious employment of the understanding is inconsistent with 
habitual indolence. Discussion and inquiry are always laborious. Time 
and patience and pains are necessary to separate truth from falsehood, 
— to collect and to compose the arguments on each side. Prejudices 
arising from temper, from education, from interest, and from innu- 
merable other causes, are not easily overcome ; and, when a ray of 
reason breaks through them, resolution is wanted to follow steadily its 
guidance : and yet without this labor we forfeit all the use and benefit 



154 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

df our understanding. If we snatch the first appearances, and sit 
down contented with them, to what purpose is it that we are able to 
investigate hidden truths ? What avails our faculty of judging, if we 
suffer each thin pretence to conceal them from us? It might be 
expected, that they who entertain every wandering opinion without 
examination should dismiss it without regret on the arrival of a new 
guest. But the fact is otherwise. This kind of levity is attended 
with obstinacy. The same disposition which leads men into error 
makes them unwilling to correct it : a state of doubtfulness is a state 
of uneasiness. The mind, therefore, hastens to the end of its journey; 
but to trace its steps back again, and examine all the windings by which 
the truth may have escaped, is to the indolent an intolerable labor. — 
Dr. William Samuel Powell : Discourses; No. I. pp. 6, 7. 

Some people have so strong a propensity to form fixed opinions on 
every subject to which they turn their thoughts, that their mind will 
brook no delay. They cannot bear to doubt or hesitate. Suspense 
in judging is to them more insufferable than the manifest hazard of 
judging wrong ; and therefore, when they have not sufficient evidence, 
they will form an opinion from what they have, be it ever so little ; or 
even from their own conjectures, without any evidence at all. Now, to 
believe without proper evidence, and to doubt when we have evidence 
sufficient, are equally the effects, not of the strength, but of the weak- 
ness, of the miderstanding. — Dr. George Campbell : The Four 
Gospels, Diss. xii. part v. sect. 9. 

There is a strong tendency in human nature to save itself from the 
trouble of inquiry and the uneasiness of doubt. We do not like to be 
left for a moment in uncertainty or suspense ; we are impatient of the 
labor of examining things for ourselves ; we are alarmed at the danger 
of mistake, and uneasy under the sense of personal responsibility ; 
and so we are disposed beforehand to accept a guide in religion, who 
shall constantly claim the power of conducting us with unerring skill, 
and who shall tell us that we have nothing to do but follow him. — 
Archbishop Whately : Cautions for the Times, p. 103. 

We make sweeping assertions, disposing of whole classes of subjects 
at a word, or we take a general principle which is perhaps true in the 
main, and carry it out to extremes, to which it cannot fairly extend. 
We do this either from the influence of an almost universal tendency 
of the human mind to love sweeping generalities, or else because it is 
troublesome to pause and reflect, and ascertain exceptions. In fact, a 
reflecting man will often detect himself believing a proposition merely 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE P [JESUIT OF TRUTH. 155 

because, when expressed, it sounds antithetic and striking, or because 
it is comprehensive and distinct, and, right or wrong, presents a con- 
venient solution for whole classes of difficulties. The human mind 
will, in a word, run into almost any belief, by which it may be saved 
the labor of patient thought, and at the same time avoid the mortifica- 
tion of acknowledging its ignorance. — Jacob Abbott : The Comer- 
stone, p. 302. 

§ 6. Party Spirit and Personal Interest. 

Another great cause of confidence in false conceits is the bias of 
some personal interest prevailing with a corrupted will, and the mix- 
ture of sense and passion in the judgment. For as interested men 
hardly believe what seemeth against them, and easily believe that 
which they would have to be true ; so sense and passion, or affections, 
usually so bear down reason that they think it their right to possess 
the throne. — Richard Baxter : Knowledge and Love Compared ; 
in Practical Works, vol. xv. pp. 157-8. 

Self-conceit . . . promotes indolence and obstinacy. For why should 
he toil any longer in the mines of knowledge who is already possessed 
of their most valuable treasures ? how can he submit to try his opinions 
by the judgment of others who is himself the fittest to decide ? This 
temper, when the mind is conversant with points of the highest nature, 
such as relate to religion and government, will show itself in violent 
bigotry. What indeed is this, but an obstinate adherence to ill- 
grounded notions ; with a conceit, that we only, and those of our own 
sect or party, are the favorites of God and the friends of mankind, and 
that ail who differ from us are weak or wicked ? Want of industry to 
examine our own tenets, of candor to listen to those of others, and of 
modesty in judging of both, lays a sure foundation for this vice ; which 
can never be removed but by another thing equally wanted, an exten- 
sive acquaintance with the world. This would certainly convince us, 
that among persons of every denomination some may be found of 
excellent understandings and distinguished virtue. — Dr. William 
Samuel Powell : Discourses, No. I. p. 8. 

When a strong prejudice against any description of persons is 
deeply rooted in the general body of a people, and both their under- 
standings and their feelings are inveterately convinced of its justice, 
the eradication of it requires length of time : no powers of reason or 
eloquence can remove it on a sudden, or even w'thout incessant repe* 



156 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 

tition of effort This i3 particularly the case in all questions of a 
complicated nature, upon which the feelings and passions of men have 
been long and violently agitated, and both religious and political par- 
ties have been deeply engaged, — Charles Butler : Reminiscences, 
page 277. 

Truth and error, as they are essentially opposite in their nature, so 
the causes to which they are indebted for their perpetuity and triumph 
are not less so. Whatever retards a spirit of inquiry is favorable to 
error; whatever promotes it, to truth. But nothing, it will be 
acknowledged, has a greater tendency to obstruct the exercise of free 
inquiry, than the spirit and feeling of a party. Let a doctrine, however 
erroneous, become a party distinction, and it is at once intrenched 
in interests and attachments which make it extremely difficult for the 
most powerful artillery of reason to dislodge it. It becomes a point of 
honor in the leaders of such parties, which is from thence communicated 
to their followers, to defend and support their respective peculiarities to 
the last ; and, as a natural consequence, to shut their ears against all the 
pleas and remonstrances by which they are assailed. Even the wisest 
and best of men are seldom aware how much they are susceptible of this 
sort of influence ; and while the offer of a world would be insufficient to 
engage them to recant a known truth, or to subscribe an acknowledged 
error, they are often retained in a willing captivity to prejudices and 
opinions which have no other support, and which, if they could lose 
sight of party feelings, they would almost instantly abandon. ... It is 
this alone which has ensured a sort of immortality to those hideous 
productions of the human mind, the shapeless abortions of night and 
darkness, which reason, left to itself, would have crushed in the moment 
of their birth. — Robert Hall : Terms of Communion ; in Works, 
voL i. p. 352. 

§ 7. The Speculations of Vanity and the Love of Singularity. 

Such as reject sentiments generally received, or at least received 
ny a great number of persons, should take care that the love of singu- 
larity, rather than a demonstration that others are mistaken, has made 
them quit the beaten road. It is true, indeed, that the multitude of 
those who embrace a certain opinion is not a good proof of the truth 
of it ; but, on the other hand, it is no cogent argument that a thing 
is false because many people believe it. — Le Clerc : Causes of 
Incredulity, p. 30. 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 157 

Men there are who, in matters of doctrine, suffer themselves to be 
carried away by every idle blast ; who catch at this or that opinion, 
because it has the gloss of novelty ; who are seduced from the sound 
form of religion by artful or violent fanatics, recommending their own 
peculiar dogmas upon the ground of superior sanctity in the teacher 
and the taught ; and while from one part of human infirmity, in the 
precipitation with which such notions have been once embraced, we have 
another instance of the same infirmity manifested in the pertinacity 
with which they are retained. These misguided men are watchful 
indeed against the smallest encroachments of common sense. They 
stand fast in opposing assumption to argument, and ideal experiences 
to the general moral sentiments and habits of their fellow-creatures 
and fellow-Christians. They quit themselves like dogmatists too 
illuminated to be instructed, and like zealots too impetuous to be 
restrained. . . . Fondness for novelty engenders at first versatility in 
belief; that versatility is followed by ambition of singularity; that 
ambition is increased by sympathy with other men, whom we consider 
not as rivals, but associates in the common pursuit of spiritual dis- 
tinction from the bulk of mankind. By the co-operation of these 
causes, pride and fanaticism gradually gain an entire ascendency over 
the affections and the judgment, which soon become ductile to them ; 
and by various progressions they ultimately produce an inveterate and 
invincible rigidity in opinion, a contemptuous aversion to farther in- 
quiry, a restless impatience of dissent however modest, and discussion 
however sober. Most assuredly such a state of mind has no encourage- 
ment from Scripture, where we are directed to prove all things, and 
cleave to that which after such proof is perceived to be good ; to be 
on the watch against rash and deceitful teachers ; to stand fast in the 
sound form of doctrine once delivered to true believers ; to quit our- 
selves like men who disdain to be the blind followers of blind guides ; 
to be strong in resisting every attempt to seduce us from those simple 
and sublime truths which are alike approved by reason, and sanctioned 
by revelation. — Dr. Samuel Parr : Sermon on Resolution ; in 
Works, vol. vL pp. 332-4. 

Nor is a mind inflated with vanity more disqualified for right action 
than just speculation, or better disposed to the pursuit of truth than 
the practice of virtue. To such a mind the simplicity of truth is 
disgusting. Careless of the improvement of mankind, and intent 
only v pon astonishing with the appearance of novelty, the glare of 
paradox will be preferred to the light of truth; opinions will be 

14 



158 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

embraced, not because they are just, but because they are new : the 
more flagitious, the more subversive of morals, the more alarming to 
the wise and good, the more welcome to men who estimate their 
literary powers by the mischief they produce, and who consider the 
anxiety and terror they impress as the measure of their renown. — 
Robert Hall : Modern Infidelity Considered ; in Works, vol L 
page 33. 

§ 8. The Dread of Contempt and Ridicule. 

Pride makes men ashamed of the service of God, in a time and 
place where it is disgraced by the world ; and, if it have dominion, 
Christ and holiness shall be denied or forsaken by them, rather than 
their honor with men shall be forsaken. If they come to Jesus, it is, 
as Nicodemus, by night. They are ashamed to own a reproached 
truth, or scorned cause, or servant of Christ. If men will but mock 
them with the nicknames or calumnies hatched in hell, they will do as 
others, or forbear their duty. — Richard Baxter : Christian Direct- 
ory ; in Practical Works, vol. iii. p. 23. 

A system may be thrown into discredit by the fanaticism and folly 
of some of its advocates, and it may be long before it emerges from 
the contempt of a precipitate and unthinking public, ever ready to 
follow the impulse of her former recollections ; it may be long before 
it is reclaimed from obscurity by the eloquence of future defenders ; 
and there may be the struggle and the perseverance of many years 
before the existing association, with all its train of obloquies and dis- 
gusts and prejudices, shall be overthrown. A lover of truth is thus 
placed on the right field for the exercise of his principles. It is the 
field of his faith and of his patience, and in which he is called to a 
manly encounter with the enemies of his cause. He may have much 
to bear, and little but the mere force of principle to sustain him. But 
what a noble exhibition of mind, when this force is enough for it ; 
when, though unsupported by the sympathy of other minds, it can 
rest on the truth and righteousness of its own principle; when it 
can select its object from among the thousand entanglements of error, 
and keep by it amidst all the clamors of hostility and contempt; 
when all the terrors of disgrace cannot alarm it ; when all the levities 
of ridicule cannot shame it ; when all the scowl of opposition cannot 
overwhelm it ! There are some very fine examples of such a contest, 
and of such a triumph, in the history of philosophy. . . . When Sir 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 159 

Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation was announced to the world, if it 
had not the persecution of violence, it had at least the persecution of 
contempt to struggle with. . . . This kept it for a time from the chairs 
and universities of Europe ; and for years a kind of obscure and ignoble 
sectarianism was annexed to that name which has been carried down 
on such a tide of glory to distant ages. Let us think of this, when 
philosophers bring their names and their authority to bear upon us, 
when they pom* contempt on the truth which we love, and on the 
system which we defend ; and, as they fasten their epithets upon us, 
iet us take comfort in thinking that we are under the very ordeal 
through which philosophy herself had to pass, before she achieved the 
most splendid of her victories. — Dr. Thomas Chalmers : Select 
Works, vol. iv. p. 222. 

This, too, is the ordeal through which Unitarianism has passed, and is 
still, in some measure, passing. This is the ordeal through which have 
passed the adherents of the great doctrine which confessedly lies at the 
foundation of all true religion, whether natural or revealed ; and which, in 
spite of a narrow dogmatism and a crude metaphysics, is more or less 
recognized by all Christian churches. The believers in the strict Oneness 
of the Divine Being, of the unrivalled Supremacy of the infinite Father, 
have been subjected to every species of contempt and persecution. Their 
learning has been despised; their characters have been traduced; their 
motives maligned; their names associated with irreverence, impiety, and 
infidelity. But all this obloquy, though certainly presenting no evidence for 
the truth of their doctrine, affords, at the same time, as little ground for re - 
garding it as erroneous. It should be tried by its own merits; judged of by 
its harmony or its dissonance with the principles of reason and revelation; 
and a decision be made of its truth or of its falsity, uninfluenced by the ful- 
minations of bigotry, by the sneers of a cold indifference, or by the clamors 
and prejudices of an unthinking people. 

Men are often kept in error, not because they have any special 
objection to the truth itself, or to the practical consequences, in general, 
which result from it, but because they are unwilling to acknowledge 
that they have been in the wrong. A man who has always been on 
one side, and is so universally regarded, cannot admit that he has been 
mistaken, without feeling mortification himself, and exciting the ill-will 
of others. Light, however, comes in, which he secretly perceives is 
sufficient to show him that he has been wrong ; but he turns his eye 
away from it, because he instinctively feels what must inevitably follow 
from its admission. — Jacob Abbott : Tlie Corner-stone, ; or, a Fami* 
liar Illustration of the Principles of Christian Truth f p. 296, 



160 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

§ 9. The Influence of a Proud, Empty, Sectarian Criticism. 

Men of high station in the church, and of high reputation for know* 
ledge, should be cautious in what terms, and before what hearers, they 
pass sentence upon books which they professedly do not deign to read. 
A specious criticism, begotten, it may be, by rashness upon prejudice, 
and fostered by vanity or ill-nature, as soon as it was produced, — a 
random conjecture, suddenly struck out in the conflicts of literary 
conversation, — a sprightly effusion of wit, forgotten perhaps by the 
speaker the moment after it was uttered, — a sly and impertinent sneer, 
intended to convey more than was expressed, and more than could be 
proved, may have very injurious effects upon the reputation of a writer. 
I suspect, too, that these effects are sometimes designedly produced by 
critics, who, finding the easy reception given to their own opinions, 
prefer the pride of decision to the toil of inquiry. The remarks of such 
men are eagerly caught up by hearers who are incapable of forming for 
themselves a right judgment, or desirous of supporting an unfavorable 
judgment by the sanction of a great name. They are triumphantly 
repeated in promiscuous, and sometimes, I fear, even in literary assem- 
blies, and, like other calumnies, during a long and irregular course 
they swell in bulk, without losing any portion of their original malig- 
nity. — Dr. Samuel Parr : Dedication to Warburtonian Tracts ; in 
Works, vol. iii. p. 387. 

Our theology may be greatly improved by encouraging among our 
scholars more freedom and candor of criticism. We have long been 
dissatisfied with the manner in which the critical department of our 
literature is conducted. Our theological criticism, especially, ought to 
be governed by well-established and sure principles, and to breathe a 
spirit of the utmost candor. It ought to love the truth more than the 
canons or the symbols. Its reverence for the dead ought not to exceed 
the limits of sound reason, nor should its tenderness to the living 
hazard the interests of science. It ought to rise above party sympa- 
thies, above popular prejudice. But it is only a small part of our 
theological criticism which is regulated by these principles. We have 
many parties in theology, and each school is inclined to extol the 
writings of its own partisans, and to depreciate the productions of its 
opponents. There is more severity of criticism with us than with the 
hard-nerved disputants of Germany ; but it is seventy against those 
from whom we are separated by party lines. There is more adulation 
of authors in this country than in that land of authors ; but it is the 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSU7T OF TRUTH. 161 

adulation of those who are hemmed in with us by the same sectarian 
limits. Like our political editors and orators, we are too much dis- 
posed to speak only well of him that is with us, — only ill of him that 
is against us : the flattery is too fulsome, the censure too unsparing. 
It is rare that we find a truly dispassionate and unbiassed criticism, 
dispensing praise and blame where it is deserved, without fear and 
without favor, without bitterness and without partiality. It is by no 
means easy to determine the exact value of a work from any review 
of it which is given in some of our religious journals ; so much allow- 
ance are we compelled to make for party predilections, so much severity 
are we called upon to mitigate, so much adulation to qualify. Now, 
we ought to have candor enough, independence enough, enough of the 
liberal spirit of true learning, to rise above so narrow and baneful a 
policy, and to redeem the character of our national criticism from the 
extravagance both of flattery and of sarcasm, which has so generally 
been objected against us. If criticism is to hold any valuable place in 
subserviency to theological science, it must be more liberal, more dis- 
criminating, more moderate in its sectarian partialities, more faithful 
to the spirit of sound scholarship and fraternal sympathy. — Biblio* 
theca Sacra for November, 1844 ; vol. i. pp. 753-4. 

With much pleasure we make the preceding extract, taken from an 
excellent article, prepared by a society of clergymen, on " the State of 
Theological Science and Education in our Country." In the present age, 
when the pulpit has, both for good and evil, lost so much of its former power, 
and the press is the main instrument employed in influencing the public 
mind, we know of nothing more detrimental to catholicity of spirit and the 
love of truth among the people than that narrowness of soul, on the part of 
editors, which, by its withering scowl on all that is excellent out oi its own 
pale, would prevent the readers of a professedly religious journal from 
perusing any work that bears not the stamp of a prevalent and a stereo 
typed orthodoxy. Truth is divine, wherever found, — in friend or foe ; and 
it should be the delight of the Christian critic to separate it from the error 
with which it may be blended, and to exhibit its beauty and holiness, 
without any bigoted regards to his own particular form of theological specu- 
lation. 

1 10. The Seductions of Feeling and Imagination, of Impressions 
and Passions. 

Sometimes a strong, deluded imagination maketh men exceeding 
confident in error, — some by melancholy, and some by a natural 
weakness of reason, and strength of fantasy ; and some, by misappre- 

14* 



162 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

hensions in religion, grow to think that every strong conceit which 
doth but come in suddenly, at reading, or hearing, or thinking od 
such a text, or in time of earnest prayer, especially if it deeply affect 
themselves, is certainly some suggestion or inspiration of God's Spi- 
rit. — Richard Baxter : Knowledge and Love Compared, vol. xv. 
page 158. 

Those who are subject to the command of their own affections 
judge more according to the inclinations of them than to the dictates 
of right reason. He that espouses a party or interest, that loves an 
opinion, and desires it should be true, easily approves of whatsoever 
does but seem to make for it, and rejects, almost at all adventures, 
whatsoever appears against it. How does the hope and desire of honor 
or favor or fortune in the world carry men away to the vilest things for 
the prosecution of it ! And so all the other passions of the mind, 
whether it be fear or pleasure, or whatever else be the affection that 
rules us : they hinder the reason from judging aright, and weighing 
impartially what is delivered to us j and it is great odds but such an 
auditor receives or condemns the doctrine of Christ, not according as 
the authority of Holy Scripture and the evidence of right reason 
require he should, but as his own passions and inclinations prompt him 
to do! — Archbishop Wake: Sermons and Discourses, pp. 17-19. 

To assign a feeling and a determination of will, as a satisfactory 
reason for embracing or rejecting this or that opinion or belief, is of 
ordinary occurrence, and sure to obtain the sympathy and the suffrages 
of the company. And yet to me this seems little less irrational than 
to apply the nose to a picture, and to decide on its genuineness by the 
sense of smelL — S. T. Coleridge : Aids to Reflection ; in Works, 
vol. i. p. 119. 

It is perfectly notorious that the great mass of those who adopt 
even the purest forms of faith adopt it without any rational examina- 
tion of evidence, whether of natural or revealed truth. The appeal 
to natural impressions, however just in itself, throws no light whatever 
on the real question at issue, which concerns not what men are led to 
believe, but the rational evidence on which they believe it ; not what 
are the natural impressions, but how and why they should be impressed. 
And this more especially with reference to the analysis of our own 
convictions, and the searching inquiry which we ought to make into 
the grounds of our own belief, with all the light and information we 
possess, in order that, on the most vitally important of all subjects, 
these convictions should be guarded by none but the most secure 



IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 163 

arguments, and repose on none but the most unassailable foundations. 
But the majority of those who decry this kind of inquiry do so upon 
a more specific ground of faith. They, in fact, discard all idea of 
reasoning upon the subject. They look to a peculiar kind of impres- 
sion upon the soul, neither to be reasoned upon nor resisted. In this 
then* whole apprehension of the Deity is made to consist. Thus all 
philosophical proof is useless, and even dangerous ; all exercise of the 
intellect on such a subject is at variance with the demands of a true 
faith. With those who entertain such persuasions, it is of course vain 
to dispute. Discarding reason, they are insensible to fallacies in 
argument. — Baden Powell : Connection of Natural and Divine 
Truth, pp. 222-3. 

[1] It is quite certain that most men are disposed to believe or 
disbelieve according to their wishes. Even the wisest men are not 
exempt from this bias of the judgment, unless they are carefully on 
their guard against it ; and the generality may be observed on many 
occasions mustering every argument they can think of to persuade 
themselves of the truth of what is agreeable, and raising every objec- 
tion against any thing which they do not like to believe 

[2] There are persons . . . who, in supposed compliance with the 
precept, " Lean not to thine own understanding," regard it as a duty 
to suppress all exercise of the intellectual powers, in every case where 
the feelings are at variance with the conclusions of reason. They 
deem it right to " consult the heart more than the head ; " i. e. to 
surrender themselves, advisedly, to the bias of any prejudice that may 
chance to be present : thus, deliberately and on principle, burying in 
the earth the talent entrusted to them, and hiding under a bushel the 
candle that God has lighted up in the mind. . . . I am far from 
recommending presumptuous inquiries into things beyond the reach 
of our faculties, attempts to be " wise above what is written," or 
groundless confidence in the certainty of our conclusions. But we 
cannot even exercise the requisite humility in acquiescing in revealed 
doctrines, unless we employ our reason to ascertain what they are ; 
and there is surely at least as much presumption in measuring every 
thing by our own feelings, passions, and prejudices, as by our own 
reasonings. — Archbishop Whately. 

That portion of Dr. Whately's remarks numbered [1] is taken from 
"Sermons on Various Subjects," p. 318; that which is numbered [2], 
from " Essays on the Difficulties in St. Paul's Writings," Essay I. \ 3, 
Dp. 24-5 



tfi4 IMPEDIMENTS TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

§ 11. Hindrances in General. 

There is, in many minds, a native and almost invincible prepossession 
in favor of all that is accredited, or ancient, or associated with dignity 
and high station. It may be a physical propensity; it may be an 
intellectual weakness ; it may be a moral sentiment, estimable and 
virtuous in its affinities, but in itself unintelligent, and liable to much 
perversion. There is in others a contempt of authority, — a fierce 
independency of action, — which may be equally injurious, when carried 
to excess. . . . There is a constitutional churchmanship, and there is 
a constitutional sectarianism ; and they are both equally contemptible 
and worthless. Our business is to preserve the habits of our mind, to 
the last practicable extent, free from the perversions of either class, 
and to follow truth alone wherever it may lead us ; making candid 
allowance for the failings and errors of other men, but using the most 
vigorous exertions to surmount our own. — Dr. Robert S. M'All : 
Discourses , vol. i. p. 253. 

In some good men the imagination is so inordinately predominant, 
that they are so governed by taste and poetry as to be almost insen- 
sible to the force of logic. Others are so impelled by imaginative 
emotions, that they have no affinity for enlarged, calm, and compre- 
hensive logical views. In others the association of ideas has imparted 
to every thing that has been, during their education, linked in with the 
system of the gospel, such an aspect of holiness, that even errors are 
invested with all the sacredness of the truths with which they have 
been associated. Not only the church of Rome, but all state churches 
and great denominational organizations, exert an influence upon the 
standing and means of support of all their members, so powerful that 
it tends to arrest or overrule the free action of the logical power, by 
an influence which is, in its essential nature, rather intimidating than 
illuminating or reasoning. In others, emotions of reverence and grati- 
tude to great and good men of past ages, emotions in themselves very 
proper, are so inordinate as to render them incapable of admitting that 
any of their views can be erroneous. National prejudices, moreover, 
and denominational commitments, and the general state of society in 
any age, exert a great control over the action of the logical power. — 
Dr. Edward Beecher : Conflict of Ages, p. 200. 



165 



CHAPTER III. 

REASON AND REVELATION THE ONLY LEGITIMATE 
STANDARDS OF RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE. 



SECT. I. — THE OBLIGATION TO USE THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS IN 
MATTERS OF RELIGION. 

All-sacred Reason! source and soul of all, 
Demanding praise on earth, or earth above! 

Edward Yoraa. 

This pretence of a necessity of humbling the understanding is none 
of the meanest arts whereby some persons have invaded and have 
usurped a power over men's faith and consciences. . . . He that submits 
his understanding to all that he knows God hath said, and is ready tc 
submit to all that he hath said, if he but know it, denying his own 
affections and ends and interests and human persuasions, laying them 
all down at the foot of his great Master Jesus Christ, — that man hath 
brought his understanding into subjection, and every proud thought 
into the obedience of Christ ; and this is " the obedience of faith " 
which is the duty of a Christian. — Jeremy Taylor : Liberty of 
Prophesying, sect. h\ 13 ; in Whole Works, vol. vii. p. 468. 

When we say God hath revealed any thing, we must be ready to 
prove it, or else we say nothing. If we turn off reason here, we level 
the best religion in the world with the wildest and most absurd enthu- 
siasms. And it does not alter the case much to give reason ill names, 
to call it " blind and carnal reason." . . . For our parts, we apprehend 
no manner of inconvenience in having reason on our side ; nor need 
we desire a better evidence that any man is in the wrong, than to hear 
him declare against reason, and thereby to acknowledge that reason 
is against him. . . . Some men seem to think, that they oblige God 
mightily by believing plain contradictions; but the matter is quite 
otherwise. — Archbishop Tillotson : Sermon 56 ; in Works, vol iv, 
pp. 300-1. 






166 THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS 

Is it not intolerable presumption for men to mould anu shape religion 
according to their fancies and humors, and to stuff it with an infinite 
number of orthodox propositions, none of which are to be found in 
express terms in Scripture, but are only pretended to be deduced from 
thence by such imaginary consequences, from some little hints and 
appearances of things ? Especially, is not this unpardonable in those 
men who cry down reason for such a profane and carnal thing as must 
not presume to intermeddle in holy matters, and yet lay down the 
foundation of their religion, and erect such glorious and magnificent 
fabrics, on nothing else but some little shows and appearances of reason ? 
But the plain truth is this, when men argue from the nature of God 
and his works and providences, from the nature of mankind, and those 
eternal notions of good and evil, and the essential differences of things, 
— that is, when men argue from plain and undeniable principles, which 
have an immutable and unchangeable nature, and so can bear the stress 
and weight of a just consequence, — this is carnal reason; but when 
they argue from fancies and imaginations, which have no stable nature, 
from some pretty allusions, and similitudes, and allegories, which have 
no certain shape nor form, but what every man's fancy gives them, — 
tins is sanctified and spiritual reason ; but why I cannot imagine, unless 
that it so much resembles ghosts and shadows, which have nothing solid 
and substantial in them. — Dr. William Sherlock : Knowledge of 
Christ, chap. iii. sect. 3. 

There are those who do not scruple to say, the more contradictions 
the better; the greater the struggle and opposition of reason, the 
greater is the triumph and merit of our faith. But there is no likelihood 
of suppressing any of our doubts or disputes in religion this way ; for, 
besides the natural propension of the soul to the search of truth, and 
the strong and impatient desire we have to know as much as ever we 
can of what immediately concerns us, it is generally and very justly 
looked upon both as the privilege and duty of man to inquire and 
examine before he believes or judges, and never to give up his assent 
to any thing but upon good and rational grounds. ... It is well the 
difficulties of subduing the understanding are too great to be mastered ; 
for a slight reflection will serve to convince us, that the necessary con- 
sequences of a blind resignation of judgment would be far more fatal 
to Christianity than all our present divisions. What blasphemies and 
contradictions may and have been imposed upon men's belief, under the 
venerable name of " mysteries " ? and how easy are villanous practices 
derived from an absurd faith? Another condition necessary to 



TO BE USED IN MATTERS 01* RELIGION. 167 

render a thing capable of being believed is, that it implies no contra- 
diction to our former knowledge. I cannot conceive how it is possible 
to give our assent to any thing that contradicts the plain dictates of 
our reason, and those evident principles from whence we derive all our 
knowledge. ... It is not consistent with the justice, wisdom, or good- 
ness of God to require us to believe that which, according to the frame 
and make he has given us, it is impossible for us to believe; for, 
however some men have advanced this absurd paradox that God can 
make contradictions true, I am very certain, that, upon an impartial 
trial of their faculties, they would find it were perfectly out of their 
power to believe explicitly, and in the common sense of the terms, that 
a part can be bigger than the whole it is a part of. — Dr. Robert 
South : Considerations on the Trinity, pp. 2, 3 ; 16, 17. 

It is the true remark of an eminent man, who had made many 
observations on human nature, " If reason be against a man, a man 
will always be against reason." This has been confirmed by the 
experience of all ages. Very many have been the instances of it in 
the Christian as well as the heathen world ; yea, and that in the earliest 
times. Even then there were not wanting well-meaning men, who, not 
having much reason themselves, imagined that reason was of no use in 
religion ; yea, rather, that it was a hindrance to it. And there has not 
been wanting a succession of men who have believed and asserted 
the same thing. But never was there a greater number of these in the 
Christian church, at least in Britain, than at this day. Among them that 
despise and vilify reason, you may always expect to find those enthusiasts 
who suppose the dreams of their own imagination to be revelations from 
God. We cannot expect that men of this turn will pay much regard to 
reason. Having an infallible guide, they are very little moved by the 
reasonings of fallible men. ... If you oppose reason to these, when they 
are asserting propositions ever so full of absurdity and blasphemy, 
they will probably think it a sufficient answer to say, " Oh ! this is your 
reason," or " your carnal reason." So that all arguments are lost upon 
them : they regard them no more than stubble or rotten wood. — 
John Wesley: Sermon 75; in Works, vol. ii. p. 126. 

No enlightened Christian would be disposed to deprecate with 
wanton contempt, or from false humility, the powers of reason, because 
he must consider those powers as the gracious gift of God himself; as 
the distinguishing characteristic of our own nature, and the necessary 
instruments both of our intellectual and spiritual improvement. — 
Dr. Samuel. Parr: Sermon on Faith; m Works, vol v. p. 354. 






168 THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS 



It seems to me, that, of all faults, this [an uns ibmissive under* 
standing] is the most difficult to define or to discern ; for who shall 
say where the understanding ought to submit itself, unless where it is 
inclined to advocate any thing immoral ? We know that what in one 
age has been called the spirit of rebellious reason, has in another been 
allowed by all good men to have been nothing but a sound judgment 
exempt from superstition. — Dr. Thomas Arnold : Letter 20 j in 
Life and Correspondence, p. 69. 

There is not necessarily any real humility in a disparagement of the 
human understanding, — the intellectual powers, as contrasted with 
the affections and other feelings. " The pride of human reason " is a 
phrase very much in the mouth of some persons, who seem to think 
they are effectually humbling themselves by feeling, or sometimes by 
merely professing, an excessive distrust of all exercise of the intellect, 
while they resign themselves freely to the guidance of what they call 
the heart ; ftiat is, their prejudices, passions, inclinations, and fancies. 
But the feelings are as much a part of man's constitution as his reason : 
every, part of our nature will equally lead us wrong if operating uncon- 
trolled. ... It may be observed, by the way, that the persons who use 
this kind of language never do, in fact, divest themselves of any human 
advantages they may chance to possess. Whatever learning or argu- 
mentative powers any of them possess (and some of them do possess 
much), I have always found them ready to put forth, in any controversy 
they may be engaged in, without showing much tenderness for an oppo- 
nent who may be less gifted. It is only when learning and argument 
make against them, that they declaim against the pride of intellect, and 
depreciate an appeal to reason when its decision is unfavorable. So 
that the sacrifice which they appear to make is one which in reality 
they do not make, but only require, when it suits their purpose, from 
others. . . . They appear voluntarily divesting themselves of what many 
would feel a pride in ; and thus often conceal from others, as well as 
from themselves, the spiritual pride with which they not only venerate 
their own feelings and prejudices, but even load with anathemas all 
who presume to dissent from them. It is a prostration, not of man's 
self before God, but of one part of himself before another. — Arch- 
bishop Whately : Dangers arising from Injudicious Preaching ; 
in Essays on Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 59-62. 

All who insist upon a blind faith only show the feebleness and 
timidity of their faith. Nay, at the very moment when they are 
calling upon mankind to cast dovyn their understandings before what 



TO BE USED IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 169 

the) assert to be an incomprehensible mystery, there is no little sell- 
exaltation in assuming that their own understandings are the measure 
of human capacity, and that what to them is obscure and perplexing 
must needs be so for ever to all mankind. — Julius Charles Hare : 
The Victory of Faith, pp. 63-4. 

We dissent, on the other hand, very widely from those who are in 
the* habit of decrying reason, and of uttering strong reproaches against 
her, as though she were the great corrupter of the human race, and the 
determined opposer and enemy of revelation. Things like these we 
have heard and read, to our deep regret and utter astonishment ; and 
we would fain put all the friends of evangelical sentiment on their 
guard against uttering or countenancing them. Nothing can be farther 
from the truth than that revelation requires us to abandon reason. 
Nay, so far is the case from this, that revelation addresses itself, first 
of all, to the faculty of reason. It is admitted, on all hands, that the 
Bible does not prove the being of a God : it assumes this truth, as 
already known and conceded. . . . What is it that weighs and compares 
the various testimonies and evidences that a God exists, and that he 
has revealed himself in the Scriptures ; and then deduces conclusions 
from this ? Reason. What is it which ascertains the laws of inter- 
pretation for that book which professes to be a revelation from God ? 
Reason. What determines that God has not members of a physical 
body like our own, when the Bible seems to ascribe them to him ? 
Reason. . . . Reason, then, is our highest and ultimate source of appeal 
in the judgment that we form of things which are fundamental in 
regard to religion. Even if a revelation were to be made to us 
in particular, we must appeal to reason to judge whether the evidences 
jf its reality were sufficient. Such being most plainly the fact, we can 
nevei join with those who think they are doing God service when they 
decry the faculty of reason ; a faculty which we regard as one of the 
highest and noblest proofs that our nature was formed in the image of 
God. Shall we say, now, that reason can never be trusted j that she 
is always so dark, so erring, that we can have no confidence in her 
decisions ? If so, then why should we trust her decisions in favor of the 
beir,g of a God, or of his spiritual nature, or of his moral attributes, or 
of the truth of revelation ? If reason does not decide in favor of all 
these and many more truths, then what is the faculty of our nature 
which does decide ? and is that other faculty any more secure against 
error than the faculty of reason ? — Spirit of the Pilgrims for April, 
1828; vol. i. pp. 204-3 

15 



170 THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS 

There are limits to the duty of faith in alleged mysteries. If there 
were not, there could be no defence against absurdities the most 
gross, promulgated under the cover of the Bible. The advocates of 
transubstantiation take refuge behind the shield of mystery ; but all 
Protestants agree in the decision, that a dogma which does violence 
to the intuitive convictions of the human mind, through the senses, 
shall not be sheltered by the plea of mystery and faith. So there are 
certain first truths on which all reasoning rests. Without them, we 
cannot evince the being of a God, or establish the divine origin or 
authority of the Bible. The intuitive convictions of the human mind 
as to honor and right are of no less authority. Without them, we 
could form no idea of the moral character of God. If any statements 
are directly at war with these, the resort to mystery and faith, in their 
defence, is not legitimate. — Dr. Edward Beecher: Conflict of 
Ages, p. 129. 

He [Christ] always respected reason in man, and addressed himself 
frankly and magnanimously to man's free will, teaching everywhere 
that when we neglect those faculties given us by nature for perceiving 
the truth, we judge falsely of true religion, and involve ourselves in 
disgraceful inconsistencies. For examples, consult Matt. xii. 9-12. 
Luke xiv. 1-6. Matt, xxiii. 16-33, &c. In reading the whole history 
of Christ's life and instructions, we cannot fail to be struck with asto- 
nishment and delight at the carefulness with which he ever honored 
the freedom and capacities of the human mind ; in all cases seeking to 
create rational convictions, and never employing coercion aside from 
the constraints of love. — E. L. Magoon : Repub. Christianity, p. 144. 

Let us ever beware of the sin and folly of disparaging the reason. 
It is the only high and godlike endowment possessed by us, — the 
only attribute in which man still bears the image of his Maker. Seek 
not to degrade and humble it ; but bow in willing submission to its 
rightful authority. It is the voice of God speaking within you. Every 
one of its utterances carries with it the divine sanction. Whatever we 
learn from other sources is at best but knowledge at second hand. 
It has authority, and demands our reception and confidence only as it 
comes with credentials recognized by the intelligence. Veil this light 
within, and you have nothing without but mist and obscurity. Extin- 
guish it, and you are at once and for ever enveloped in profound 
darkness. Disparage the reason, deny its paramount authority, and 
you cut off the only arm by which you hold on to the plank of truth 
floating upon a boundless ocean of possibilities. From the free air 



i, 



TO BE USED IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 171 

and sunlight of day, you go down, down into the gloomy depths of a 
fathomless, bottomless scepticism. ... If your faith be in conflict with 
the clearly ascertained laws of nature, or the well-established principles 
of science, — which are only the inductions of a larger experience, — 
you will do well to modify it. If you continue the unequal contest, you 
are sure in the end to be beaten. The ever-active spirit of investigation, 
and the continually growing developments of knowledge resulting from 
it, cannot be restrained by the fetters of a creed. As well might you 
hope to bind leviathan with threads of gossamer, or stop the fiery 
steed to which the car has been harnessed by modern invention, by 
placing your hand upon it, or by simply looking at it. Interpretation 
has always, in the end, yielded to the demands of advancing science, 
however long it has struggled against them ; and it always must yield. 
Nor are the interests of piety and religion in danger of permanently 
suffering from it The truth, although for a time depressed, it may 
be, at length, detached from the leaden weight of error that bore it 
down, is seen floating still more buoyantly upon the surface. Resist 
not progress in any of the paths of human inquiry. There is surely 
everywhere need enough of more knowledge. If the light pain you, 
it is because your eyes are weak or diseased. Give the necessary 
attention to them ; but do not attempt to put out the sun. In your 
zeal for the interests of Christian truth, do not exalt the Scriptures at 
the expense of the reason. Remember that the latter is the elder 
daughter of Heaven. At least, pay her equal honors. — Dr. Geo. L 
Chace : Relation of Divine Providence to Physical Laws, pp. 41-4. 

When preparing the way for others to receive mysterious and unintelli- 
gible dogmas, it is not unusual for some religionists to depreciate that reason 
which God has graciously bestowed on man, by a process of argumentation, 
such as it is, which implies that they do not consider it altogether unworthy 
of respect; and to represent Unitarians as deifying their intellectual powers, 
because they aim at testing the truth of theological opinions by an appeal 
to the principles of reason; thus betraying their own fears, that, if tried at 
the bar of that divine judge, the doctrines which they propound would be 
found wanting in evidence sufficient to establish their truth. The senti- 
ments, however, quoted in this and the next section, are of a far different 
and more honorable character, and are perfectly accordant with the princi- 
ples held by all Unitarians. But if, as we believe, they are founded in 
truth, and if the doctrines of reputed Orthodoxy are opposed to the dictates 
of reason, as we. will hereafter show from the confessions of eminent Trini- 
tarians, — then, because reason and revelation, proceeding equally from the 
Father of lights, cannot be repugnant, should these doctrines be rejected as 
unworthy the credence of rational men or of enlightened Christians. 






172 HARMONY OF REASON AND REVELATION. 



SECT. II. — REASON AND REVELATION CONSISTENT WITH EACH OTHER, 

An opinion hath spread itself very far in the world, as if the way to he ripe in 
faith were to be raw in wit and judgment ; as if reason were an enemy unto religion, 
childish simplicity the mother of ghostly and divine wisdom. — Richard Hooker. 

God never offers any thing to any man's belief, that plainly contra- 
dicts the natural and essential notions of his mind ; because this would 
be for God to destroy his own workmanship, and to impose that upon 
the understanding of man, which, whilst it remains what it is, it cannot 
possibly admit. For instance, we cannot imagine that God should 
reveal to any man any thing that plainly contradicts the essential per- 
fections of the divine nature; for such a revelation can no more be 
supposed to be from God, than a revelation from God, that there is no 
God ; which is a downright contradiction. — Archbishop Tillotson : 
Sermon 56; in Works, vol. iv. p. 296. 

Though some deluded men may tell you, that faith and reason are 
such enemies that they exclude each other as to the same object, and 
that the less reason you have to prove the truth of the things believed, 
the stronger and more laudable is your faith ; yet, when it cometh to the 
trial, you will find that faith is no unreasonable thing, and that God 
requireth you to believe no more than you have sufficient reason for to 
warrant you and bear you out, and that your faith can be no more than 
is your perception of the reasons why you should believe ; and that 
God doth suppose reason when he infuseth faith, and useth reason in 
the use of faith. They that believe, and know not why, or know no 
sufficient reason to warrant their belief, do take a fancy, an opinion, or 
a dream, for faith. — Richard Baxter : Christian Directory ; in 
Practical Works, vol. ii. p. 171. 

Bight reason, no less than Scripture, proceeds from God, and is as a 
light set up for our use, by which we are enabled to discern truth from 
error. It is incredible that divine revelation should ever be repugnant 
to reason, or that any thing should be philosophically true which is 
theologically false ; for, since reason, as well as revelation, is the gift 
of Heaven, God would be opposed to himself if these were inimical 
Light is not contrary to light, but the one is greater than the other. 
Revelation does not destroy, but perfect, reason : what the latter is 
of itself unable to discover, the former being superadded clearly per- 
ceives. — Limborch : Theologia Christiana, lib. i. cap. 12, § 4, 



HARMONY OF REASON AND REVELATION. 173 

It is blasphemy to think, that God can contradict himself; and 
therefore right reason being the voice of God, as well as revelation, 
they can never be directly contradictory to one another. — Dr. Robert 
South : Considerations on the Trinity, p. 18. 

There are many, it is confessed, particularly those who are styled 
mystic divines, that utterly decry the use of reason in religion ; nay, 
that condemn all reasoning concerning the things of God, as utterly 
destructive of true religion. But we can in no wise agree with this. 
We find no authority for it in Holy Writ. So far from it, that we 
find there both our Lord and his apostles continually reasoning with 
their opposers. — John Wesley : Works, vol. v. p. 12. 

It will not be easy for missionaries of any nation to make much 
impression on the Pagans of any country ; because missionaries in 
general, instead of teaching a simple system of Christianity, have 
perplexed their hearers with unintelligible doctrines not expressly deli- 
vered in Scripture, but fabricated from the conceits and passions and 
prejudices of men. Christianity is a rational religion : the Romans, 
the Athenians, the Corinthians, and others, were highly civilized, far 
advanced in the rational use of their intellectual faculties j and they 
all, at length, exchanged Paganism for Christianity. The same change 
will take place in other countries, as they become enlightened by the 
progress of European literature, &c. — Bishop Watson : Anecdotes 
of his Life, p. 198. 

The light of revelation, it should be remembered, is not opposite to 
the light of reason ; the former presupposes the latter ; they are both 
emanations from the same source ; and the discoveries of the Bible, 
however supernatural, are addressed to the understanding, the only 
medium of information whether human or divine. Revealed religion 
is not a cloud which overshadows reason : it is a superior illumination 
designed to perfect its exercise, and supply its deficiencies. Since 
truth is always consistent with itself, it can never suffer from the most 
enlarged exertion of the intellectual powers, provided those powers be 
regulated by a spirit of dutiful submission to the oracles of God. — 
Robert Hall : Address in behalf of the Baptist Academical Insti- 
tution at Stepney ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 441. 

The doctrine which cannot stand the test of rational investigation 
cannot be true. . . . We have gone too far when we have said, " Such 
and such doctrines should not be subjected to rational investigation, 
being doctrines of pure revelation." I know no such doctrines in the 
Bible. The doctrines of this book are doctrines of eternal reason, 

15* 






174 HARMONY OF REASON AND REVELATION. 

and they are revealed because they are such. Human reason could 
not have found them out ; but, when revealed, reason can both appre- 
hend and comprehend them. It sees their perfect harmony among 
themselves, their agreement with the perfections of the divine nature, 
and their sovereign suitableness to the nature and state of man : thus 
reason approves and applauds. Some men, it is true, cannot reason ; 
and therefore they declaim against reason, and proscribe it in the 
examination of religious truth. — Dr. Adam Clarke : Ccmmentory, 
vol. vi. last page. 

It is not scriptural, but fanatical, to oppose faith to reason. Faith 
is properly opposed to sense, and is the listening to the dictates of the 
higher part of our mind, to which alone God speaks, rather than to 
the lower part of us, to which the world speaks. There is no end to the 
mischiefs done by that one very common and perfectly unscriptural 
mistake of opposing faith and reason, or whatever you choose to call 
the highest part of man's nature. And this you will find that the 
Scripture never does ; and observing this, cuts down at once all Pusey's 
nonsense about rationalism ; which, in order to be contrasted scriptu- 
rally with faith, must mean the following some lower part of our 
nature, whether sensual or merely intellectual ; that is, some part 
which does not acknowledge God. But what he abuses as rationalism 
is just what the Scripture commends as knowledge, judgment, under- 
standing, and the like ; that is, not the following a merely intellectual 
part of our nature, but the sovereign part ; that is, the moral reason 
acting under God, and using, so to speak, the telescope of faith for 
objects too distant for its naked eye to discover. And to this is opposed, 
in scriptural language, folly and idolatry and blindness, and other such 
terms of reproof. According to Pusey, the forty-fourth chapter of 
Isaiah is rationalism, and the man who bowed down to the stock of a 
tree was a humble man, who did not inquire, but believe. But if 
Isaiah be right, and speaks the words of God, then Pusey, and the man 
who bowed down to the stock of a tree, should learn that God is not 

served by folly Faith without reason is not properly faith, but 

mere power-worship ; and power-worship may be devil-worship ; for it 
is reason which entertains the idea of God, — an idea essentially made 
up of truth and goodness, no less than of power. ... If this were con- 
sidered, men would be more careful of speaking disparagingly of reason, 
seeing that is the necessary condition of the existence of faith. It is 
quite true, that, when we have attained to faith, it supersedes reason ; 
we walk by sunlight, rather than by* moonlight ; following the guidance 



HARMONY OF REASON AND REVELATION. 175 

of infinite reason, instead of finite. But how are we to attain to faith ? 

— in other words, how can we distinguish God's voice from the voice 
of evil ? for we must distinguish it to be God's voice, before we can 
have faith in it. We distinguish it, and can distinguish it no other- 
wise, by comparing it with that idea of God which reason intuitively 
enjoys ; the gift of reason being God's original revelation of himself to 
man. Now, if the voice which comes to us from the unseen world 
agree not with this idea, we have no choice but to pronounce it not to 
be God's voice ; for no signs of power, in confirmation of it, can alone 
prove it to be God's. God is not power only, but power and truth and 
holiness ; and the existence of even infinite power does not necessarily 

involve in it truth and holiness also It is no less true, that, 

while there is, on the one side, a faculty higher than the understanding, 
which is entitled to pronounce upon its defects, ... so there is a clamor 
often raised against it, not from above, but from below, — the clamor of 
mere shallowness and ignorance and passion. Of this sort is some of the 
outcry which is raised against rationalism. Men do not leap, per saltum 
mortalem, from ordinary folly to divine wisdom ; and the foolish have 
no right to think they are angels, because they are not humanly wise. 
There is a deep and universal truth in St. Paul's words, where he says, 
that Christians wish "not to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that 
mortality may be swallowed up of life." Wisdom is gained, not by 
renouncing or despising the understanding, but by adding to its per- 
fect work the perfect work of reason ; and of reason's perfection, faith. 

— Dr. Thomas Arnold : Letter 143, in Life and Correspondence, 
p. 286 ; and Miscellaneous Works, pp. 266-7, 270. 

God is the original of natural truth, as well as of that which comes 
by particular revelation. No proposition, therefore, which is repugnant 
to the fundamental principles of reason can be the sense of any part 
of the word of God. — Thomas Hartwell Horne : Introduction to 
the Holy Scriptures, vol. i. p. 356. 

Too many have not scrupled to affirm, that the truths of reason are 
at variance with those of revelation ; that the volume of nature and the 
volume of history contradict the volume of God's word; and that 
the only way of cleaving to the last is to close and fling away the other 
two. Yet this is impossible. Man cannot disbelieve that which the 
legitimate exercise of all his faculties compels him to acknowledge. 
He is so framed that reason is the lord of his mind, and intellectually 
he must obey it. — Julius Charles Hare : Mission of the Comforter, 
vol. i. p. 204 






176 HARMON Y OF REASON AND REVELATION. 

We allow that the reason and conscience of man are to judge of 
that [the Christian] revelation, so far as its truths come within the 
domain of conscious knowledge. In saying this, we speak with 
the utmost distinctness. We are not exalting reason above revelation; 
we are not speaking of a self-sufficient reason, but of a reason joined 
with devout affections, and enlightened by the Spirit of Truth. It is 
too often the folly of Christian divines, in decrying a false reason, to 
speak disparagingly of all rational power, and thus make revelation 
unreasonable. But it is, first of all, untrue, and cuts away the founda^ 
tion of Christianity. It puts out the eye by which we see the light 
If the mind could have no idea of God, it could not receive the truth 
of God in his Son Jesus Christ ; if the conscience have no perception of 
moral sight, it could not recognize the perfect holiness of our Lord, or 
the obligation of duty to him ; if the soul have no thought or longing 
after immortality, his resurrection and gift of eternal life are robbed 
of their power. — Church Review for Jan. 1855 ; vol. vii. pp. 504-5. 

The quotations in this section have been made, not for the purpose of 
showing that the dictates of reason, and the teachings of each and of all 
portions of Scripture, are entirely coincident one with another, but merely 
that whatever has been revealed by God through the utterances or the 
writings of inspired men never has contradicted, and never can contra- 
dict, the judgments which are formed by a proper use of the intellectual 
powers. The revelations which are recorded in the Bible as having been 
made to the Hebrews by Moses and the prophets, and to mankind by Jesus 
and his apostles, unquestionably afford us higher and clearer views of the 
will and character of Almighty God, and of our relation to him and the great 
family of rational beings, than were ever reached by men of the loftiest 
order of intellect, when unaided by supernatural light from Heaven. But, 
when these revelations are brought home to the human mind, they must 
either be felt to harmonize with the laws of our common reason, or must 
go to prove that the faculty of our nature which discerns the alleged revela- 
tions to have come from God is unworthy of our confidence ; thus destroying, 
as it were, the very foundation of our faith in a supernatural message. If, 
therefore, any professedly divine communication, though sounding in our 
ears from the vault of the eternal heavens, or borne to us by the holiest and 
highest of divine messengers, were found to proclaim doctrines derogatory 
to God, or inimical to the principles which lie embedded in the constitution 
of our moral and mental nature, we could have no assurance that they came 
from the Author of wisdom and of every good and perfect gift. In such 
circumstances, indeed, we might make a feint of surrendering our under- 
standings ; but, in the very act of retractation, and in opposition to all the 
forces of our will, we should feel compelled to say, with the poet, that — 
'' When Faith is virtue, Reason makes it so." 



SUFFICIENCY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 177 



SECT. in. -- HOLY WRIT SUFFICIENT, WITHOUT THE DICTA OF 
CHURCHES OR OF INDIVIDUALS, TO BE A RULE OF FAITH AND 
COMMUNION. 

[Our] champions are the Prophets and Apostles ; 
[Our] weapons, holy saws of Sacred Writ. 

Shakspearb. 

§ 1. Sufficiency of the Sacred Scriptures. 

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation ; so that 
whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to 
be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the 
faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. — .Articles 
of the Church of England, Art. 6. 

All synods or councils, since the apostles' times, whether general or 
particular, may err, and many have erred : therefore they are not to be 
made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as an help in both. 

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the 

word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience. — Westminster 
Divines : Confession of Faith, chap. xxxL 4 ; and Larger Catechism* 
Quest. 3. 

All Protestants agree that the Scripture is sufficient to salvation, 
and contains in it all things necessary to it. — Archbishop Laud : 
Conf with Fisher, p. 34 ; as quoted in Short and Safe Expedient. 

If ministers, or councils called general, do err and contradict the 
word of God, we must do our best to discern it ; and, discerning it, 
must desert their error rather than the truth of God. — Richard 
Baxter : Christian Directory, part i. chap. iv. 10 j in Practical 
Works, vol. ii. p. 554. 

No true Protestant considers him [Luther], or any of the Reformers, 
as either apostle or evangelist. It is a fundamental principle with such 
to call no man upon the earth master; knowing that we have one 
Master, one only infallible Teacher, in heaven, who is Christ. All 
human teachers are no further to be regarded, than they appear, to 
the best of our judgment, on impartial examination, to be his inter- 
preters, and to speak his words. The right of private judgment, in 
opposition to all human claims to a dictatorial authority in matters of 
faith, is a point so essential to Protestantism, that, were it to be given 
up, there would be no possibility of eluding the worst reproaches with 






J 78 SUFFICIENCY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

which the Romanist charges the Reformation ; namely, schism, sedi- 
tion, heresy, rebellion, and I know not what. But if our Lord, the 
great Author and Finisher of the faith, had ever meant that we should 
receive implicitly its articles from any human authority, he would 
never have so expressly prohibited our calling any man upon the 
earth master, leader, or guide. — Dr. Geo. Campbell : Lectures on 
Ecclesiastical History, Lect. 28. 

We must not, if we would profit by the examples of Christ and his 
apostles, refer the people as a decisive authority, on the essential and 
immutable points of Christian faith and duty, to the declarations or 
decrees of any class or body of fallible men, — of any who have not 
sensibly miraculous proofs of inspiration to appeal to. Whether it be 
to a council or to a church that reference is made, — whether to ancient 
or to later Christian writers, — whether to a great or to a small number 
of men, however learned, wise, and good, — in all cases the broad line of 
distinction between inspired and uninspired must never be lost sight 

of. " When they shall say unto you, Lo, here ! or Lo, there ! 

believe it not." " If they shall say, Behold ! he is in the secret 
chambers " (of some conclave or council of divines), " or, Behold 1 he 
is in the wilderness " (inspiring some enthusiastic and disorderly pre- 
tender to a new light), " go not after them." Whether they fix on 
this or that particular church as the abode of such inspired authority ; 
or on the universal church, — which, again, is to be marked out either 
as consisting of the numerical majority, or the majority of those who 
lived within a certain (arbitrarily fixed) period, or a majority of the 
sound and orthodox believers, i. e. of those in agreement with the per- 
sons who so designate them, — all these, in their varying opinions as 
to the seat of the supposed inspired authority, are alike in this, — that 
they are following no track marked out by Christ or his apostles, but 
merely their own unauthorized conjectures. While one sets up a 
golden image in Bethel, and another in Dan, saying, " These be thy 
gods, Israel ! " all are, in fact, " going astray after their own inven- 
tions," and " worshipping the work of their own hands." For, however 
vehemently any one may decry " the pride of intellect," and the pre- 
sumption of exercising private judgment, it is plain that that man is 
setting up, as the absolute and ultimate standard of divine truth, the 
opinions held by himself or his party, if these are to be the decisive 
test of what is orthodoxy, and orthodoxy again the test of the genuine 
church, and the church the authoritative oracle of gospel truth. And 
yet this slightly circuitous mode of setting up the decrees of fallible 



SUFFICIENCY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 179 

man as the object of religious veneration and faith will often be found 
to succeed in deluding the unwary. — Archbishop Whately : Essays 
on Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 130-2, 138-40. 

We know of no standard but the Bible, — nothing that can serve 
to show the truth of a religious tenet, except the infallible word of God. 
Councils may change ; Fathers of the church may be mistaken ; the 
Reformers were fallible ; and shall we who enjoy the benefit resulting 
from the light and learning of past ages stand still where they stopped, 
or appeal to them as our guides, just because they attained to eminence 
at a time when surrounding circumstances were unfavorable to the 
progress of truth ? We were not made to sleep over the Bible, or to 
stereotype those principles, civil and religious, which it is the glory of 
our forefathers to have transmitted to their posterity. While rendering 
due respect to the Reformers, and honoring the men of past times who 
defended the great truths lying at the foundation of Christian hope, 
we regard it as nothing less than Popery in principle — that very 
thing in essence which we profess to abhor — to call up the names of 
illustrious dead as the infallible expounders of the Bible, or to give 
our language the semblance of assuming, that to differ from current 
opinions is to disown Protestantism and to favor Romanism. When 
shall the various sections of the Protestant church learn fully, and act 
out with earnest honesty, the lesson of heaven, " Call no man your 
father upon the earth ; for one is your Father, which is in heaven " ? 
In some instances the Reformers were wrong ; in others they were but 
partially enlightened. They wrote not a few things that cannot be 
received. Their reasoning is often inconsequential, sometimes absurd ; 
and we should as readily believe in the inspiration of the apocryphal 
books of the Maccabees as adopt all their opinions with implicit faith. 
Verily the principle of Romanism is of far wider range and more 
extended influence than the church of Rome. The church of England, 
with all her excellence, has something of it. Nonconformists have 
much of it. Its leaven may be seen quietly impregnating the minds 
of stereotyped Dissenters, in phases and forms innumerable. — Dr. 
Samuel Davidson : Introduction to the New Testament, vol. hi. pp. 
512-13. 

Any use of a creed, or a constitution, or a church court, or a 
council, tending to discountenance the free investigation of the Bible 
on any and every article whether of belief or of practice, or to shield 
any portion of the church against those changes to which she ever has 
been and still is constantly liable from the progressive advancement of 






180 IXEEFICACY OF CREEDS. 



Diblical knowledge, is a usurpation of the rights of God over the con- 
sciences and understandings of men. It is religious despotism under 
whatever specious forms it may be exercised, and with whatever 
semblance of earnest contention for the faith once delivered to the 
saints it may be advocated. — New Englander for April, 1844 j 
vol ii. pp. 207-8. 

§ 2. Inefficacy and Pernicious Results of requiring an Asseni 
or a Subscription to Creeds and Articles of Faith. 

Their urging of subscription [the urging of subscription by church 
governors] to their own articles, is but laeessere et irritare morbos 
ecclesia, which otherwise would exercise and spend themselves. . . . He 
seeketh not unity, but division, who exacteth that in words which men 
are content to yield in action. And it is true there are some which, 
as I am persuaded, will not easily offend by inconformity, who, not- 
withstanding, make some conscience to subscribe. — Lord Bacon : 
Advertisement concerning Controversies; in Works, vol. ii. p. 418. 

The requiring subscriptions to the Thirty-nine Articles is a great 
imposition. . . . The greater part [of those that serve in the church] 
subscribe without ever examining them ; and others do it because 
they must do it, though they can hardly satisfy their consciences about 
some things in them. — Bishop Burnet: History of His Own 
Time, vol. iv. p. 410. 

With respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, as explained by Atha- 
nasius or any other man, I cannot look upon it to be so fundamental 
in religion as to think we should be guilty of sin, in consenting to 
revise, or even to change it. If in this I differ from some, I have others 
to support me ; nay, I have the great principle of all the Protestant 
churches in the world in my favor ; for it is a principle with them all 
to admit the fallibility of all human explications of Scripture, Every 
human explication, then, of the Trinity may be an erroneous explica- 
tion j and what may be an error cannot and ought not to be imposed 
as a fundamental Christian verity. — Bishop Watson : Expediency of 
Revising the Liturgy, p. 67 ; apud Christ Reformer for June, 1839. 

Subjects purely speculative should be left free. If some are so bold 
as to determine, — who hath a right so to do, in matters of whose 
nature, it is generally allowed, no one can have any intuition, percep- 
tion, or knowledge ? Who, then, will presume to say positively what 
* man is or is not to believe ? To attempt an explanation of these 



INEFFICACY OF CREEDS. 181 

things, or to make men understand them, is equally ridiculous as to bid 
the blind to see, or the deaf to hear. How necessary it is, therefore, to 
read the Scripture, that we might with certainty know what we should 
believe, and might not be loaded with articles, which, if not altogether 
useless, are indifferent, and will not make us either the wiser or the 
better ! Our time will be more properly employed in learning our 
duty, than in exercising a vain curiosity after mysteries. Bad actions 
are worse than erroneous opinions. The latter flow from a weak and 
mistaken judgment : the former proceed from a wicked and corrupt 
heart The one will be forgiven j the other, without repentance, never. 
.... Articles of faith should be few in number, and such as are appa- 
rently and absolutely necessary, so that to refuse assent to them would 
be absurd. — James Penn, B. A., Under-master of Christ's Hospital : 
Tracts, p. 13 ; apud Manning's Vindication of Dissent, pp. 25-6. 

A long course of experience has clearly demonstrated the inefficacy 
of creeds and confessions to perpetuate religious belief. Of this the 
only faithful depository is not that which is " written with ink," but on 
the " fleshly tables of the heart." The spirit of error is too subtile and 
volatile to be held by such chains. Whoever is acquainted with 
ecclesiastical history must know, that public creeds and confessions 
have occasioned more controversies than they have composed; and 
that, when they ceased to be the subject of dispute, they have become 
antiquated and obsolete. A vast majority of the Dissenters of the 
present day hold precisely the same religious tenets which the Puritans 
did two centuries ago, because it is the instruction they have uniformly 
received from their pastors ; and, for the same reason, the articles of 
the national church are almost effaced from the minds of its members, 
because they have long been neglected or denied by the majority of 
those who occupy its pulpits. We have never heard of the church 
of Geneva altering its confession, but we know that Voltaire boasted 
there was not in his time a Calvinist in the city ; nor have we heard 
of any proposed amendment in the creed of the Scotch, yet it is cer- 
tain the doctrines of that creed are preached by a rapidly decreasing 
minority of the Scottish clergy. From these and similar facts, we may 
fairly conclude, that the doctrines of the church, with or without sub- 
scription, are sure to perpetuate themselves where they are faithfully 
preached ; but that the mere circumstance of their being subscribed 
will neither secure their being pleached nor believed. — Robert 
Hall : Review of Zeal ivithout Innovation ; in Works, vol. ii. 
pp. 261-2. 

16 






182 INEFFICACY OF CREEDS. 

Men may incorporate their doctrines in creeds or articles of faith, 
and sing them in hymns ; and this may be all both useful and edifying, 
if the doctrine be true : but, in every question which involves the 
eternal interests of man, the Holy Scriptures must be appealed to, in 
union with reason, their great commentator. He who forms his creed 
or confession of faith without these, may believe any thing or nothing, 
as the cunning of others or his own caprices may dictate. Human 
creeds and confessions of faith have been often put in the place of the 
Bible, to the disgrace both of revelation and reason. Let those go 
away, let these be retained, whatever the consequence. " Fiat justitia : 
ruat coelum." — Dr. Adam Clarke: Commentary, vol. vi. last page. 

"Who would not shrink from asserting, that a heathen of virtuous 
life must without doubt perish everlastingly? Still more, who is 
there that in his heart pronounces endless punishment on the earnest 
and conscientious man who lives in the faith and love of Christ, but 
yet is intellectually unable to word his creed in the precise phraseo- 
logy adopted by the Athanasian formula ? ... It is a public scandal, 
and very injurious to national morality, that such emphatic words 
should be solemnly used in our churches, and yet accepted by no one ; 
for, though each man's conscience may be relieved by the consciousness 
that the dissent from the natural meaning is so universally understood 
as to deceive no one, the example of such vehement yet really dis- 
avowed assertion is grievously calculated to countenance the low 
morality which prevails regarding public professions. . . . Scripture 
never intended to reveal to us the real and absolute essence of the 
divine nature : it could not be grasped by the human understanding. — 
North British Review for August, 1852 ; Amer. edit. vol. xii. p. 205. 

The writer of the preceding paragraph, however, says that " nowhere is 
the cardinal doctrine of the Trinity expounded with greater felicity and 
greater power than in the Athanasian Creed." Might we not add, certainly 
not in the Sacred Scriptures ? 

In respect to the original right of private judgment, — the right to 
call in question any human symbols or confessions, and to bring them 
all to the simple test of God's holy word, — why should it be thought, 
or even indirectly intimated, that it is presumption and wickedness 
for any individual now to question the correctness of some opinions 
defended by Luther and Melancthon, by Zuingle and Calvin, or by 
Turretin and Gomer ? Are there no Christians now who have as 
much knowledge of the Bible as these men ? Are there none who 
have as high a reference for it, as much sincere attachment to it? 



INEFFICACY OF CREEDS. 183 

Is it not a matter of wonder, that, after so many experiments 

utterly unsuccessful, the churches should still continue to expect and 
demand the accomplishment of that from creeds and councils, and from 
authority, which never can be brought about except by scriptural 
reason and argument ? Have the Thirty-nine Articles of the English 
church secured her uniform orthodoxy and evangelical spirit ? History, 
from the time of Archbishop Laud, will answer this question. Have 
the church of Scotland been made uniform in sentiment by their creed ? 
Look through its history for the last century, and any one may easily 
learn. Have the Presbyterian churches in England and America been 
made uniform in their faith by reason of their creed ? and are they still 
of one mind ? Alas ! we are almost forced to the conclusion that their 
dissensions have been increased by their symbols ; so much is surely 
true, viz., that, when dissensions have existed, they have been greatly 
aggravated by the very reason, that accusation for supposed departure 
from the standards has been rendered more intense and urgent, and has 
assumed more of the air of authority. . . . Reason, argument — rather 
I should say, the Scriptures urged by reason and argument — are the 
only ultimate means to be relied on, so far as means employed by men 
are concerned. — Moses Stuart, in Biblical Repository for July, 
1836 ; vol. viii. pp. 34, 67-8. 

Dogmatical propositions, such as are commonly woven into creeds 
and catechisms of doctrine, have not the certainty they are commonly 
supposed to have. They only give us the seeing of the authors at 
the precise standpoint occupied by them at the time, and they are 
true only as seen from that point ; not even there, save in a proximate 
sense. ... In the original formation of any creed, catechism, or system 
of divinity, there is always a latent element of figure, which probably 
the authors know not of, but without which it is neither true to them 
nor to anybody. But, in a long course of repetition, the figure dies 
out, and the formula settles into a literality, and then, if the repetition 
goes on, it is really an assent to what is not true ; for that which was 
true at the beginning has now become untrue, — and that, however 
paradoxical it may seem, by being assented to. . . . Considering the 
infirmities of Language, therefore, all formularies of doctrine should be 
held in a certain spirit of accommodation. They cannot be pressed to 
the letter, for the very sufficient reason that the letter is never true. 
They can be regarded only as proximate representations, and should 
therefore be accepted, not as laws over belief or opinion, but more as 
badges of consent and good understanding. The moment we begin 



184 INEFFICACY OF CREEDS. 

to speak of them as guards and tests of purity, we confess that we 
have lost the sense of purity, and, with about equal certainty, the 
virtue itself. . . . The greatest objection that I know to creeds — that 
is, to creeds of a theoretic or dogmatic character — is, that they make 
so many appearances of division, where there really is none till the 
appearances make it. They are likely also, unless some debate or 
controversy sharpens the mind to them and keeps them alive, to die 
out of meaning, and be assented to at last as a mere jingle of words. 
Thus we have, in many of our orthodox formulas of Trinity, the 
plirase, " the same in substance ; " and yet how many are there, even 
of our theologians, to whom it will now seem a heresy to say this with 
a meaning ! And the clause following, " equal in power and glory," 
will be scarcely less supportable, when a view of Trinity is offered 
which gives the terms an earnest and real significance. — Dr. Horace 
Bushnell : God in Christ, pp. 79-83. 

Though creeds are understood neither by their authors nor by any one 
else, and whatever was true in them originally becomes by repetition untrue, 
and though they are quite useless as guards and tests of purity of doctrine, 
Dr. Bushnell says (p. 82) that he has been ready to accept as great a 
number of them as fell in his way. 

Creeds fabricated by priestly craft constitute the heaviest and most 
corroding chain ever fastened on human minds. The inquirer after 
truth is drawn away from the words and example of the great Teacher, 
and confused by those who shout around him their own articles so 
violently, that the voice of the only infallible Master is nearly drowned. 
And what are these substitutes for the plain teachings of the New 
Testament but miserable skeletons, freezing abstractions, unintelligible 
dogmas, as dubious to the understanding as they are repugnant to the 
heart ? The confessions of faith, books of discipline, and creed- 
concoctions, in general, adopted by most Protestant sects, embody 
the grand idea of infallibility, as truly as the decrees of Trent and the 
Vatican ; and, if I were compelled to choose between the two, most 
assuredly would I prefer the despotism of Rome ; for that has some 
historical dignity, if no other merit. — E. L. Magoon : Republican 
Christianity, pp. 242-3. 

So say all true Protestants, extracts from whom might occupy many 
volumes. But, alas ! how frequently amongst those who arrogate to them- 
selves exclusively the title of " Orthodox," are the decisions of fallible 
councils and erring individuals made the rule of Christian faith and com 
munion ! 



REVISION OF COMMON VERSION OF THE BIBLE. 185 



8ECT. IV. — NEED OF REVISING THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE 
BIBLE, AND CORRECTING IT FROM A PURE TEXT. 

The hold which the mistranslations of the authorized version [of the Bible] have 
on the minds of men gives to some ecclesiastical errors a tenacity of life almost 
indestructible. — Eclectic Review for June, 1841. 

Depend on it, no truth, no matter of fact fairly laid open, can ever subvert true 
religion. — Richard Bentley. 

Whenever it shall be thought proper to set forth the Holy Scrip- 
tures, for the public use of our church, to better advantage than as 
they appear in the present English translation, the expediency of which 
grows every day more and more evident, a revision or correction of that 
translation may perhaps be more advisable than to attempt an entirely 
new one. For, as to the style and language, it admits but of little 
improvement ; but, in respect of the sense and the accuracy of inter- 
pretation, the improvements of which it is capable are great and num- 
berless. — Bishop Lowth : Translation of Isaiah, Prel. Diss. p. li. 

A new translation of the Scriptures . . . has long been devoutly 
wished by many of the best friends to religion and our established 
church, who, though not insensible of the merit of our present version 
in common use, and justly believing it to be equal to the very best 
that is now extant in any language, ancient or modern, sorrowfully 
confess that it is still far from being so perfect as it might and should 
be ; that it often represents the errors of a faulty original with too 
exact a resemblance ; whilst, on the other hand, it has mistaken the 
true sense of the Hebrew in not a few places ; and sometimes substi- 
tuted an interpretation so obscure and perplexed, that it becomes 
almost impossible to make out with it any sense at alL And, if this 
be the case, shall we not be solicitous to obtain a remedy for such 
glaring imperfections ? — Dr. Benjamin Blayney : Translation of 
Jeremiah, Prel. Disc. p. ix. 

As this collation was made by some of the most distinguished 
scholars in the age of James the First, it is probable that our author- 
ized version is as faithful a representation of the original Scriptures as 
could have been formed at that period. But when we consider the 
immense accession which has been since made, both to our critical and 
to our philological apparatus ; when we consider that the whole mass 
of literature, commencing with the London Polyglot and continued 
to Griesbach's Greek Testament, was collected subsequently to that 

16* 






186 REVISION OF COMMON VERSION OF THE BIBLE. 

period ; when we consider that the most important sources of intelli- 
gence for the interpretation of the original Scriptures were likewise 
opened after that period, — we cannot possibly pretend, that our 
authorized version does not require amendment. . . . Dr. Macknight 
goes so far as to say of our authorized version, " It is by no means 
such a just representation of the inspired originals as merits to be 
implicitly relied on for determining the controverted articles of the 
Christian faith, and for quieting the dissensions which have rent the 
church." — Bishop Marsh : Lectures, pp. 295-6. 

The warmest advocate of our translation cannot pronounce it free 
from faults, but must acknowledge that there still are in it some 
wrong interpretations, which either contradict the sense of the origi- 
nal, or obscure it. And can there be any inconvenience or danger in 
proposing to correct such errors ? Would it not be conducive to the 
advancement of the gospel to remove, if possible, and under just 
authority, every material error from our publicly received version, for 
the sake of those who do not understand the original? — Bishop 
Burgess: Tracts on the Divinity of Christ, pp. 241-2. 

[The common version of the Bible, undertaken by the orders of 
King James the First, and first published in the year 1611] is level 
to the understanding of the cottager, and fit to meet the eye of the 
critic, the poet, and the philosopher. . . . No work has ever been so 
generally read, or more universally admired ; and such is its complete 
possession of the public mind, that no translation differing materially 
from it can ever become acceptable in this country. ... It was [however] 
not made from corrected or critical texts of the originals, but from the 
Masoretic Hebrew text, and from the common printed Greek text of 
the New Testament. Consequently, whatever imperfections belonged 
to the originals at the time must be expected in the version. . . . That 
it is capable of improvement will generally be admitted, and that we 
are in possession of the means by which that improvement could be 
made is equally unquestionable. — Wm. Orme : Bibliotheca Biblica, 
pp. 37-9. 

That the text called the textus receptus, or received text, is far 
from supplying such a desideratum [as a new revision of the authorized 
version of the Bible] will be manifest in considering its origin and 
quality. That text is no other than the result of the various transcrip- 
tural errors, omissions, and additions, very partially and imperfectly 
corrected, which have accrued to the primitive text, during the thou- 
sand obscure ages that intervened between the age of the oldest 



REVISION OF COMMON VERSION OF THE BIBLE. 187 

surviving manuscript and the invention of printing Every 

one who is very sensitive for the purity and integrity of the evangelical 
records will feel it to be of the first importance that the English reader 
should at length be put in possession of the text of the Sacred Volume, 
purged from the heterogeneous incrustations which its surface has 
contracted during its passage down the stream of dark and turbid 
ages. ... It is imperative that we should at length secure and com- 
plete what Griesbach had begun, by throwing altogether out of the 
text every thing apocryphal and spurious, and thus attain to a con- 
formity with primitive Christian antiquity. — Granville Penn : 
Annotations to the Book of the New Covenant, pp. 18, 47-8. 

Respectable and excellent as our common version is, considering 
the time and circumstances under which it was made, no person will 
contend that it is incapable of important amendment. A temperate, 
impartial, and careful revision would be an invaluable benefit to the 
cause of Christianity ; and the very laudable exertions which are now 
made to circulate the Bible render such a revision, at the present time, 
a matter of still more pressing necessity. It is a failing of the same 
kind, when the text of the common Hebrew and Greek editions is 
adduced as indubitably and in every case the divine original, without 
any previous consideration or inquiry. . . . Every Christian who is 
moderately informed on these subjects knows, that the early editions 
of the original Scriptures could not possess a text so well ascertained 
as those which the superior means and the diligent industry of modern 
editors have been enabled to attain ; that from these early editions all 
the established Protestant versions were made ; and that an accurate 
and impartial criticism of the published text, as well as of any transla- 
tion, must he at the foundation of all satisfactory deduction of theo- 
logical doctrine from the words of Scripture. — Dr. John Pye Smith : 
Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, pp. 29-41. 



These extracts, which might easily have been increased by quotations 
from Dr. David Durell, Dr. John Symonds, Dr. George Campbell, 
Archbishop Newcome, S. T. Coleridge, Dr. Thomas Arnold, and many 
others, are given chiefly for the purpose of showing, that the dissatisfaction 
with the received text and common version of the Scriptures, so often mani- 
fested by Unitarians, does not involve any irreverence for the word of God; 
a species of impiety with which they have been often charged. Indeed, 
none are more accustomed than learned and devout Trinitarians to change 
the translation of certain passages in the Bible, notwithstanding the supersti- 
tious reverence paid by others to the authorized version 



188 REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 



S£CT. V. — THE SACRED BOOKS NOT INSPIRED RECORDS, BUT 
RECORDS OF REVELATION. 

The law by Moses came ; 
But peace and truth and love 
Were brought by Christ, a nobler name, 
Descending from above. 

Isaac Watts. 

§ 1. The Dogma of the Verbal, or the Plenary Inspiration op 
the Bible not Supported by Evidence. 

If any man is of opinion, that Moses might write the history of 
those actions which he himself did or was present at, without an 
immediate revelation of them ; or that Solomon, by his natural and 
acquired wisdom, might speak those wise sayings which are in his 
Proverbs ; or the evangelists might write what they heard and saw, or 
what they had good assurance of from others, as St. Luke tells he 
did; or that St. Paul might write for his cloak and parchments at 
Troas, and salute by name his friends and brethren ; or that he might 
advise Timothy to drink a little wine, &c., without the immediate dic- 
tate of the Spirit of God, — he seems to have reason on his side. For 
that men may, without an immediate revelation, write those things 
which they think without a revelation, seems very plain. And that 
they did so, there is this probable argument for it ; because we find 
that the evangelists, in relating the discourses of Christ, are very far 
from agreeing in the particular expressions and words, though they do 
agree in the substance of the discourses : but, if the words had been 
dictated by the Spirit of God, they must have agreed in them. For 
when St. Luke diners from St. Matthew in relating what our Saviour 
said, it is impossible that they should both relate it right as to the very 
words and form of expression ; but they both relate the substance of 
what he said. And, if it had been of concernment that every thing 
that they wrote should be dictated ad apicem, to a tittle, by the Spirit 
of God, it is of the same concernment still, that the providence of God 
should have secured the Scriptures since to a tittle from the least 
alteration ; which that it is not done, appears by the various readings 
both of the Old and New Testament, concerning which no man can 
infallibly say that this is right, and not the other. It seems sufficient 
in this matter to assert, that the Spirit of God did reveal to the pen- 



REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 189 

men of the Scriptures what was necessary to be revealed ; and, as to 
all other things, that he did superintend them in the writing of it, so 
far as to secure them from any material error or mistake in what they 
have delivered. — Archbishop Tillotson : Sermon 222 ; in Works, 
voL xi. pp. 185-6. 

In the selection of their arguments, Jesus and the apostles could 
not at all times confine themselves to those truths which were most 
convincing to themselves and other really enlightened men ; but they 
were also under the necessity of employing such reasonings as carried 
most weight with their contemporaries, and certain of their hearers or 
readers. . . . Hence it is that many of those arguments which the 
founders of Christianity made use of are not perfectly convincing to 
us; as, for example, Matt. xxii. 30-32. 2 Cor. hi. 7. 1 Cor. xi. 4-10. 
Heb. v. — ix. ; which contain many arguments of this nature, which 
were adapted only to the modes of thinking of the Jews. Jesus and 
the apostles adapted themselves to the modes of thinking chiefly 
of the Jews, in their citations and applications of passages of the Old 
Testament, when propounding certain truths of the gospel. This is 
designated the special accommodation of passages in the Old Testa- 
ment to the expression of the truths and objects of the New. . . . Thus 
Jesus applied what had been said by David of Ahithophel to Judas 
Iscariot, John xiii. 18. In this manner, in Matt. ii. 15-18, are several 

passages of Scripture applied to Jesus and his history As the 

four evangelists narrate every thing either as they saw and heard it 
themselves, or as they obtained it from credible eye-witnesses ; but as 
every individual regards an object from his own standing point; so in 
these narrations they very often vary from one another, so as, however, 

to coincide in the main As to what especially relates to the 

contradictions which exist between passages of the Old Testament, 
when it is taken into consideration that the Bible consists of a collec- 
tion of books, written at various times through a course of many 
centuries, some of them composed at the earliest periods of the 
existence of the human race, and all continually transcribed by later 
copyists, and frequently corrupted in many passages by the hands of 
correctors, it could scarcely fail to contain contradictions. . . . The 
religious notions of the primitive race of mankind were universally 
sensuous and imperfect. They became gradually more pure and 
perfect. This perfectibility of subjective religion was progressively 
developed until the time of Christ. When, in the course of time, 
aien had attained clearer and more correct views of divine things, 






190 REVELATION. BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 

contradictions must naturally have taken place between men's pieseni 
and past religious notions. For instance, in the books of Moses, 
unclean animals are forbidden to be eaten. A voice proclaims to 

Peter, " Eat of these unclean animals," Acts x A round number 

is often put for a more definite one. Matt. xvii. 1, Jesus took with 
him his three disciples up the mountain six days after the prediction 
of his sufferings ; but, according to Luke, it happened eight days after 
(fx. 28) : it amounts to one and the same thing. A writer is some- 
times accustomed to ascribe to several individuals what took place 
with respect to but one of them. Thus the thieves on the cross, 
according to Matthew, reviled Jesus ; but, according to Luke, it was 
only one. The sacred history must be judged of according to the 
genius of those times. It must be recollected, that their authors were 
not men of learning ; that they were but human beings, and might 
therefore err ; and that it did not seem fit to Divine Wisdom to pre- 
serve them by an extraordinary influence from harmless errors in 
matters of secondary importance. . . . Luke and Mark were not pre- 
sent to hear and see all that Jesus said or did. They therefore 
narrate what they had received from eye-witnesses, or had read in 
other histories of the life of Jesus then extant. When they subse- 
quently wrote these down from memory only, this might have easily 
given rise to a difference in the narrations. — George Frederic 
Seiler : Biblical Hermeneutics, translated by Dr. William Wright, 
§§ 267-8, 302, 323, 325-6. 

We have made this large extract from Dr. Seiler, because, though a 
German, he was so good a man and so orthodox a divine as to receive 
the highest encomiums of his translator and of Dr. John Pye Smith. These 
writers say, that his theological publications, one of which was a work on 
the Deity of Christ, " are distinguished by their candid and luminous method 
of examining evidence and discussing difficulties, by their spirit of practical 
piety, and by their tendency to show the harmony which ever subsists 
between the highest exertions of reason in all the improvements of science 
and literature, and the pure religion of the Bible." See Memoir of Seiler, 
prefixed to Dr. Wright's translation of " Biblical Hermeneutics." 

With a full persuasion of soul respecting all the articles of the 
Christian faith, ... I receive willingly also the truth of the history } , 
namely, that the word of the Lord did come to Samuel, to Isaiah, to 
others j and that the words which gave utterance to the same are 
faithfully recorded. But though the origin of the words, even as of 
the miraculous acts, be supernatural ; yet, the former once uttered, the ' 



REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 19i 

latter once having taken their place among the phenomena of the senses, 
the faithful recording of the same does not of itself imply, or seem to 
require, any supernatural working, other than as all truth and goodness 
are such. ... I believe the writer in whatever he himself relates of his 
own authority, and of its origin ; but I cannot find any such claim, as 
the doctrine in question [that all that exists in the Sacred Volume was 
dictated by an infallible Intelligence] supposes, made by these writers, 
explicitly or by implication. On the contrary, they refer to other 
documents, and in all points express themselves as sober-minded and 

veracious writers under ordinary circumstances are known to do 

Say that the Book of Job throughout was dictated by an infallible Intel- 
ligence. Then reperuse the book, and still, as you proceed, try to 
apply the tenet : try if you can even attach any sense or semblance of 
meaning to the speeches which you are reading. What! were the 
hollow truisms, the unsufficing half-truths, the false assumptions, and 
malignant insinuations of the supercilious bigots who corruptly de- 
fended the truth ; — were the impressive facts, the piercing outcries, 
the pathetic appeals, and the close and powerful reasoning with which 
the poor sufferer — smarting at once from his wounds, and from the 
oil of vitriol which the orthodox liars for God were dropping into 
them — impatiently, but uprightly and holily, controverted this truth, 
while in will and in spirit he clung to it ; — were both dictated by an 
infallible Intelligence? Alas! if I may judge from the manner in 
which both indiscriminately are recited, quoted, appealed to, preached 
upon, by the routiniers of desk and pulpit, I cannot doubt that they 
think so, or rather, without thinking, take for granted that so they are 

to think. All the miracles which the legends of monk or rabbi 

contain can scarcely be put in competition, on the score of complica- 
tion, inexplicableness, the absence of all intelligible use or purpose, and 
of circuitous self-frustration, with those that must be assumed by the 
maintainers of this doctrine, in order to give effect to the series of 
miracles by which all the nominal composers of the Hebrew nation 
before the time of Ezra, of whom there are any remains, were succes- 
sively transformed into automaton compositors, so that the original text 
should be in sentiment, image, word, syntax, and composition, an exact 
impression of the divine copy ! — S. T. Coleridge : Confessions of 
an Inquiring Spirit ; in Works, vol. v. pp. 583-4, 593-4, 612. 

"We know that the Catholics look with as great horror on the con- 
sequences of denying the infallibility of the church as you [the Rev. 
John Tucker] can do on those of denying the entire inspiration of the 






192 REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 



Scriptures j and that, to come nearer to the point, the inspiration of 
the Scriptures in points of physical science was once insisted on as 

stoutly as it is now maintained with regard to history It is 

strange to see how much of ancient history consists apparently of 
patches put together from various quarters without any redaction. Is 
not this largely the case in the Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chroni- 
cles ? For instance, are not chap. xxiv. and xxvi. of 1 Samuel merely 
different versions of the same event, just as we have two accounts of 
the creation in the early chapters of Genesis ? And must not chap- 
ters xvi. and xvii. of the same book be also from different sources, 
the account of David in the one being quite inconsistent with that 
in the other? So, again, in 2 Chron. xi. 20 and xiii. 2, there is a 
decided difference in the parentage of Abijah's mother, which is curious 

on any supposition I have long thought that the greater part 

of the Book of Daniel is most certainly a very late work, of the time of 
the Maccabees ; and the pretended prophecy about the Kings of Gre- 
cia and Persia, and of the North and South, is mere history, like the 
poetical prophecies in Virgil and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace 
distinctly the date when it was written, because the events up to the 
date are given with historical minuteness, totally unlike the character 
of real prophecy ; and, beyond that date, all is imaginary. — Dr. 
Thos. Arnold: Letters 20, 111, 222 j in Life and Correspondence, 
pp. 69, 255, 358. 

In his * Tracts for the Times " (Miscellaneous Works, pp. 285-6), Dr. 
Arnold, after stating his belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, says that 
it is an unwarranted interpretation of the term "inspiration " to suppose it 
equivalent to a communication of the divine perfections ; that many of our 
words and actions are spoken and done by the inspiration of God's Spirit; 
that all inspiration does not destroy the human and fallible part in the nature 
which it inspires ; and that, though no merely human being ever enjoyed a 
larger share of the Spirit of God than Paul, yet did he err in expecting, and 
in leading the Corinthians and Thessalonians to expect, the end of the world 
in the generation then existing. 

We have reason, from the whole tenor of Scripture, to believe that 
it is not the will of God to effect any end by a miracle which could be 
as well effected by the established course and methods of his provi- 
dence. Hence I infer, that the kind or degree of inspiration would 
be according to the nature of the object ; revelation and the highest 
suggestion, where they were necessary; but, where they were not 
necessary, that superintendence and direction of divine power lpon 



REVELATION, BUT NOT TIIE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 193 

the mind, which were sufficient for the purpose There are 

many passages in Scripture to which an original inspiration could not 
be attached. ... In Jeremiah, Jonah, and Habakkuk, inspired prophets, 
we find occasionally the utterance of sinful infirmity ; such as, in refer- 
ence to Hab. i. 2, 3, the late Mr. Milner calls a " blamable mixture 
of impatience and unbelief." {Sermons, ed. by Dean M. p. 277.) ... . 
The three friends of Job, and sometimes Job himself, advance many 
positions which are not true in principle, nor right in practice, still less 
inspired. . . . Will any considerate person say that Job's mistaken 
friends were inspired, when God himself declared to them, " Ye have 
not spoken concerning me what is right " ? or that the holy patriarch 
himself was inspired, when he execrated the day of his birth ? . . . . 
In relations of fact, veracity and accuracy are all that we want. What 
possessed these qualities, though the knowledge of it might be derived 
from any of the common sources of information, would be not less 
true than that which was infused by the immediate operation of the 
Holy Spirit. — Dr. John Pye Smith : Scripture Testimony to Vie 
Messiah, vol. i. pp. 25, 27-9. 

In pp. 22-3, this powerful opponent of Unitarianism proposes the follow- 
ing translation of 2 Tim. iii. 16, " Every writing divinely inspired (is) also 
profitable for instruction," &c, and defends it by the authority of Calvln, 
Beza, Diodati, J. D. Michaelis, De Wette, and Boothkoyd ; of the 
oldest versions, and also of the Geneva English and the Dutch. In pp. 34-8, 
he assigns his reasons for believing that the Song of Solomon was not a 
divinely inspired composition, and had no relation to any of the facts or 
doctrines of either the Israelitish or the Christian economy. In p. 59, he 
very properly says, that " that which is evinced to be true, whatever may 
be the channel through which it has entered our minds, we are bound by 
our relation to the system of God's moral government to believe; " and that 
" those well-meaning persons who think that they have proved the divine 
inspiration of a particular sentence (such as 1 Tim. v. 23, or 2 Tim. iv. 13), 
because their pious fertility has been able to educe a great number of 
important religious reflections from the advice, the request, the motives, or 
the implied circumstances, in the case, are committing an egregious folly." 
In p. 60, he admits that " in the Gospels the same fact or discourse is often 
related with differences, which, if a rigorous verbal conformity were insisted 
upon, would be irreconcilable, but which can create no difficulty if only the 
fair sense and meaning be regarded." And, in p. 62, he confesses, " that, 
after long and serious examination, this hypothesis of a universal verbal 
inspiration does appear" to him "to be clogged with innumerable difficul- 
ties, and to be by no means required by the facts of the case and the state- 
ments of the divine word." In support of his opinion, Dr. Smith quotes 
the sentiments advanced by main' eminent divines. 

17 






194 REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 



Nor again is there any reason to suppose that any of the apostles 
was in such a sense infallible as that he could not teach false doctrine. 
They were, indeed, so guided by the Spirit as to have the truth clearly 
revealed to them, so that they always knew it themselves ; but it does 
not appear that they were compelled always to speak the truth. Their 
infallibility does not seem to have been like that which Roman Catho- 
lics ascribe to their popes, whose decisions they are ready to follow, 
even when they know them to be personally the worst of men, and 
perhaps infidels in their hearts. The apostles Peter and Barnabas, for 
example, were, in one instance, induced by false shame to dissemble 
the truth which had been revealed to them, and, by the weight of their 
example, to draw others also into the same fault, Gal. ii. 11-13. Paul, 
too, expressly tells the Galatians, that, if he himself were to preach 
any other gospel to them than that which they had already received, 
they should not listen to him ; so that, even in the case of the apostles, 
men were bound to exercise their own judgments, and not required 
blindly to receive every thing they said; but, when they spoke as 
witnesses, to consider the proofs of their integrity ; when they reasoned, 
to examine their reasoning ; when they published revelations, to weigh 
well the miraculous evidence of God's speaking in them. — Arch- 
bishop Whately: Cautions for the Time,s, pp. 111-12. 

The greater part of what the apostles wrote was, doubtless, entirely 
the suggestion of their own minds, and, properly speaking, uninspired. 
Its authority is not at all diminished by this circumstance, if we grant 
(what it would be absurd to doubt) that every wrong suggestion must 
have been checked by the impulse of the Spirit, every deficiency 
supplied by actual revelation, and every failure or fault of memory 
miraculously remedied. The revelation was miraculous ; but it was 
recorded just as any man would record any ordinary information 
which might be the result of reasoning or of report. The Bible is the 
only book in the world which appeals to God for its authority, without 

affecting or pretending to the immediate authorship of God 

The true notion of inspiration is not that the sacred penman was 
inspired while in the act of writing, but that he wrote what he had 
beforehand received by extraordinary revelation. It would be impos- 
sible else to account for the variety of style and thought, the occasional 
introduction of matter foreign to revelation, and whatever else belongs 
to such writings in common with all mere human compositions. — - 
Dr. Samuel Hinds, Bishop of Norwich : History of Christianity) 
pp. 190, 284-5. 



RETELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 195 

Having perused with great attention all that has fallen in my way 
from Protestant writers on this subject [the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures], I have hardly found one single argument advanced by them 
that is not logically incorrect ; so that, if I had not higher grounds on 
which to rest my belief, they could not have led me to adopt it. . . . 
It is not fair to consider the Sacred Volume ... as forming an indi- 
vidual whole. Many of its books stand necessarily on different grounds 
from the rest. For instance, learned Protestant divines, especially on 
the continent, have excluded from inspiration the writings of St. Luke 
and St. Mark, for this reason, that, according to them, the only argu- 
ment for inspiration in the Scriptures is the promise of divine assistance 
given to the apostles. But these were not apostles ; they were not 
present at the promise ; and, if you extend that privilege beyond those 
who were present, and to whom the promises were personally addressed, 
the rule will have no farther limit. If you admit disciples to have 
partaken of the privilege, on what ground is Barnabas excluded, and 
why is not his Epistle held canonical ? . . . Nowhere does our Saviour 
tell Ins apostles, that whatever they may write shall enjoy this privilege 
[of inspiration] ; nor do they anywhere claim it. . . .What internal mark 
of inspiration can we discover in the third Epistle of St. John to show, 
that the inspiration sometimes accorded must have been granted here ? 
Is there any thing in that Epistle which a good and virtuous pastor of 
the primitive ages might not have written ; any thing superior in sen- 
timent or doctrine to what an Ignatius or a Polycarp might have 
indited ? It is unfair in the extreme, as I before intimated, to consider 
the New Testament, and still more the entire Bible, as a whole, and 
use internal arguments from one book to another ; to prove that the 
Song of Solomon has internal evidence of inspiration, because Jere- 
miah, who is in the same volume, contains true prophecies ; or that 
the Epistle to Philemon is necessarily inspired, because the Apocalypse, 
by its side, is a revelation. Yet such is a common way of arguing. If 
internal evidence has to decide the question, show it me for each book 
in that sacred collection. ... As such conversions [those spoken of by 
the Rev. Mr. Tottingham, an opponent of the Roman Catholic belief] 
do not prove the preacher's sermon to be inspired, but only the doc- 
trines which he teaches to be good, and, if you please, divine; so 
neither can a similar fact prove the Bible inspired, but merely its 
doctrines to be holy and salutary. The " Imitation of Christ " may 
be thus proved to be an inspired work. . . . His [Mr. Tottingham's] 
second proof is the prophecies recorded in Scripture. These may, 



196 REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 

indeed, prove any book to be inspired which is composed of them, 
but not, surely, any wherein they are merely recorded. . . . Show me 
where St. Matthew or St. Mark says that they have written their 
books under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, or by the command 
of God, or for any other than human purposes. Unless you can show 
this, the evidence as to their character may prove that whatever they 
wrote is true ; but it will never prove that it was written under the 
guidance of the Holy Ghost. Precisely of a similar form is his argu- 
ment drawn from prophecy. It is never attempted to show how the 
prophecies recorded in the New Testament were intended to prove 
the inspiration of the books which contain them ; how, for instance, 
the truth of our blessed Redeemer's prophecy touching the destruction 
of Jerusalem can demonstrate that the Gospel of St. Matthew must 
be inspired, because it relates it. — Cardinal Wiseman : Lectures 
on the Doctrines of the Catholic Church, pp. 31-6. 

I . . . shall, attempt to wrench this notion of a verbal inspiration 
from the hands of its champions by a reductio ad absurdum, viz., by 
showing the monstrous consequences to which it leads. ... Of what 
use is it to a German, to a Swiss, or to a Scotsman, that, three thou- 
sand years before the Reformation, the author of the Pentateuch was 
kept from erring by a divine restraint over his words, if the authors 
of this Reformation — Luther, suppose, Zwingle, John Knox — either 
making translations themselves, or relying upon translations made by 
others under no such verbal restraint, have been left free to bias his 
mind, pretty nearly as much as if the original Hebrew writer had been 
resigned to his own human discretion ? . . . The great ideas of the 
Bible protect themselves. The heavenly truths, by their own im- 
perishableness, defeat the mortality of languages with which for a 
moment they are associated. Is the lightning enfeebled or dimmed, 
because for thousands of years it has blended with the tarnish of earth 
and the steams of earthly graves ? Or light, which so long has tra- 
velled in the chambers of our sickly air, and searched the haunts of 
impurity, — is that less pure than it was in the first chapter of Gene- 
sis ? Or that more holy light of truth, — the truth, suppose, written 
from his creation upon the tablets of man's heart, — which truth never 
was imprisoned in any Hebrew or Greek, but has ranged for ever 
through courts and camps, deserts and cities, the original lesson of 
justice to man and piety to God, — has that become tainted by inter- 
course with flesh ? or has it become hard to decipher, because the very 
heart, that human heart where it is inscribed, is so often blotted with 



REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE 197 

falsehoods ? In neutral points, having no relation to morals or 

religious philosophy, it is not concealed by the scriptural records 
themselves, that even inspired persons made grave mistakes. All 
the apostles, it is probable, or with the single exception of St. John, 
shared in the mistake about the second coming of Christ, as an event 
immediately to be looked for. With respect to diseases, again, it is 
evident that the apostles, in common with all Jews, were habitually 
disposed to read in them distinct manifestations of heavenly wrath. — 
Thomas De Quincey: Theological Essays, vol. i. pp. 77-8, 80-1, 
87, and 175. 

In pp. 94-6, Mr. De Quincey shows that a divine teacher or a sacred 
writer could not avoid the use of phraseology involving scientific errors, 
without frustrating the objects of his mission, which was to teach, not 
science, but religion; and says that this " line of argument applies to all the 
compliances of Christ with the Jewish prejudices (partly imported from the 
Euphrates) as to demonology, witchcraft, &c." 

One thing is clear from this, and many other like passages, viz., 
that the apostles were not uniformly and always guided in all their 
thoughts, desires, and purposes, by an infallible Spirit of inspiration. 
Had this been the case, how could Paul have often purposed that 
which never came to pass ? Those who plead for such a uniform per- 
suasion may seem to be zealous for the honor of the apostles and 
founders of Christianity ; but they do in fact cherish a mistaken zeal. 
For if we once admit that the apostles were uniformly inspired in all 
which they purposed, said, or did ; then we are constrained, of course, 
to admit that men acting under the influence of inspiration may pur- 
pose that which will never come to pass or be done ; may say that 
which is hasty or incorrect, Acts xxiii. 3, or do that which the gospel 
disapproves, Gal. ii. 13, 14. But if this be once fully admitted, then it 
would make nothing for the credit due to any man to affirm that he is 
inspired ; for what is that inspiration to be accounted of, which, even 
during its continuance, does not guard the subject of it from mistake 
or error ? Consequently, those who maintain the uniform inspiration 
of the apostles, and yet admit (as they are compelled to do) their 
errors in purpose, word, and action, do in effect obscure the glory of 
inspiration, by reducing inspired and uninspired men to the same level. 
To my own mind, nothing appears more certain than that inspiration, 
in any respect whatever, was not abiding and uniform with the apostles 
or any of the primitive Christians. To God's only and well-beloved 
Son, and to him only, was it given to have the Spirit dfierpcjc or ov sk 

17* 



198 REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 

fxerpov [" not by measure "], John iii. 34. . . . The consequence of this 
was, that Jesus " knew no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth ; n 
but all his followers, whenever they were left without the special and 
miraculous guidance of the Spirit, committed more or less of sin and 
error. This view of the subject frees it from many and most formid- 
able difficulties. It assigns to the Saviour the pre-eminence which is 
justly due. It accounts for the mistakes and errors of his apostles. 
At the same time, it does not detract, in the least degree, from the 
certainty and validity of the sayings and doings of the apostles, when 
they were under the special influence of the Spirit of God. — Moses 
Stuart on Rom. i. 13 j in Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 
pp. 55-6. 

We cannot admit the force of the reasoning [of M. Gaussen, of 
the Oratoire] that would exalt all the writings of the Old and New 
Testament to prophetic dignity ; . . . and still less can we sympathize 
with the rigid uniformity with which he carries out, in little harmony 
as it seems to us with his own views of individuality, the theory of 
ab initio dictation in the case of every sacred writer without excep- 
tion. — North British Review for November, 1852 ; Amer. edition, 
vol. xiii. pp. 99, 100. 

The author of the article from which we make this extract opposes both 
that view of inspiration which would resolve it, with the naturalistic school, 
into elevated genius ; and the older opinion of some supernaturalists, which 
would make all the writers of the Bible, not only in their ideas but in their 
style, mere amanuenses of the Holy Spirit. Contrary also to Schleierma- 
cher, Coleridge, Neander, and Tholuck, who, in common with a great 
majority of Unitarians, believe in a partial inspiration of the Sacred Writ- 
ings, he regards all these as being plenarily inspired or infallible, though he 
candidly admits (p. 97) that "a discordant aspect" has been given "to 
some parts of the Scripture " from " the neglect of chronological details, and 
many other circumstances; " " leaving the believer in plenary inspiration in 
doubt and perplexity." 

The difficulties [which the Bible offers] never will be all resolved ; 

and, even if they were so, they would but give place to fresh ones 

When we look closely into this matter, we shall find . . . that the per- 
sonal feeling of the writers [of the Old and New Testament canons] is 
(he same ; that their individuality has the same scope, and produces the 
same effects ; that the influence of circumstances on their writings is 
the same ; and that all — various readings, incorrect translations, the 
use of various sources of information, documentary and otherwise, 
varieties of style, faults in grammar, trifling details, confessions of 



REVELATION, BUT NOT THE BIBLE, INFALLIBLE. 199 

weakness, ignorance, and sin, apparent contradictions and errors, loss 
of the authors' names, absence of any formal sanction to the canon, — 
all, in short, which we meet with in the case of the one canon is to be 

found also in that of the other With the exception of those 

cases in which they transmit to us some matter of direct revelation, . . . 
the prophets and apostles alike write under the impulse of their own 
peculiar feelings. The prophets who wrote the history of the kings 
of Judah and Israel had no more thought of producing oracles of God 
than had Mark or Luke in writing the history of Jesus Christ. — Count 
Agenor Gasparin : The Schools of Doubt and the School of Faith, 
pp. 212,287-8,297. 

Let not the reader, if unacquainted with the aim of Count Gasparin, 
suppose, from the extracts we have made from him, that he founds his belief 
in revelation on the trust worthin ess of the writers of the Bible, or on the 
divinity of the principles which they inculcate or record. The object of his 
work, on the contrary, is to establish the dogma of the plenary inspiration 
of all parts of Scripture; the absolute infallibility of all the books admitted 
into the Protestant canon ; the perfect equality of a canonical book of Moses, 
of David, of Solomon, or of an apostle, to the words even of Jesus Christ 
himself (pp. 194, 198). But if there be in the Bible so much of difficulty, 
error, weakness, apparent contradiction, &c, as he represents, — whatever 
may be the causes from which this originates, — we may be permitted to 
ask what conceivable value to faith is attributed in the theory of inspiration 
and infallibility for which he so eloquently contends. 

§ 2. The Denial of Verbal, or of Plenary Inspiration not a 
Denial of Revelation. 

It is not of necessity to salvation to believe every book or verse in 
Scripture to be canonical, or w r ritten by the Spirit of God. For as 
the Papists* canon is larger than that wilich the Protestants own ; so, 
if our canon should prove defective of any one book, it would not 
follow that we could not be saved for want of a sufficient faith. The 
churches immediately after the apostles' time had not each one all 
their writings ; but they were brought together in time, and received 
by degrees, as they had proof of their being written by authorized, 
inspired persons. ... A man may be saved who believeth not some 
books of Scripture (as Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Revelations) to 
be canonical, or the word of God ; so he heartily believe the rest, or the 

essentials Though all Scripture be of divine authority, yet he 

that believeth but some one book widen containeth the substance of 
the doctrine of salvation may be saved ; much more they that have 



200 DENIAL OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE BIBLE 

doubted but of some particular books. They that take the Scripture 
to be but the writings of godly, honest men, and so to be only a 
means of making known Christ, having a gradual precedency to the 
writings of other godly men, and do believe in Christ upon those 
strong grounds which are drawn from his doctrine, miracles, &c., 
rather than upon the testimony of the writing, as being purely infal- 
lible and divine, may yet have a divine and saving faith. Much more 
those that believe the whole writing to be of divine inspiration where 
it handleth the substance, but doubt whether God infallibly guide 
them in every circumstance. — Richard Baxter: Christian Direc- 
tory ', and The Saint's Rest ; in Practical Works, vol. v. pp. 523, 561 ; 
and vol. xxii. p. 264. 

Since the Jews had, at the time of the writing of the New Testa- 
ment, a peculiar way of expounding many prophecies and passages in 
the Old Testament, it was a very proper way to convince them, to 
allege many places according to their key and methods of exposition. 
Therefore, when divine writers argue upon any point, we are always 
bound to believe the conclusions that their reasonings end in, as parts 
of divine revelation ; but we are not bound to be able to make out, or 
even to assent to, all the premises made use of by them in their whole 
extent, unless it appears plainly that they affirm the premises as 
expressly as they do the conclusions proved by them. — Bishop 
Burnet : Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. 6, pp. 112-13. 

If the four evangelists were not rendered infallible by the imme- 
diate intervention of the Deity, it is hardly possible that their accounts 
should be wholly free from error, and therefore in no case contradic- 
tory to each other. But even if it be true that their accounts are 
sometimes at variance, it by no means follows, that the history itself, 
the miracles and the resurrection of Christ, are a forgery; and the 
only inference which we can deduce from it, is that the evangelists 
were not inspired, at least not in the relation of historical facts. . . . 
To speak the truth, I do not believe that the evangelists were divinely 
inspired in matters of history. — J. D. Michaelis : Introduction to 
the New Testament, vol. iii. part i. pp. 26-7. 

He who acquires knowledge, not by the use of any natural faculty, 
neither by immediate perception, nor by reasoning, nor by instruction, 
but in some inexplicable, miraculous manner, is inspired. He who 
sets down in writing the knowledge so obtained composes an inspired 
work. There appears to be no intelligible distinction between original 
revelation and inspiration j and yet men seem to have entertained 



NOT A DENIAL OF REVELATION. 201 

an obscure notion of something more : otherwise they could not have 
been perplexed with so many difficulties concerning the accuracy and 
perfection of the Scriptures. They contain some few passages which 
appear to have no relation to religion, and many facts which the writers 
certainly knew in the ordinary way. Nor does there seem any reason 
to expect marks of the interposition of Heaven in such matters. The 
great truths impressed on their minds neither obliterated their former 
knowledge, nor made it perfect. When they speak, for instance, of a 
Roman custom or a Jewish tradition, we are not to imagine that these 
things were revealed from above, nor to require greater accuracy in 
their accounts of them than in other writers who treat of the affairs 
of then* own age and their own country. When they relate the won- 
derful events which they had seen and heard, it will be no objection 
to their credit as human witnesses, that we find in their several histo- 
ries of the same fact such a variety of circumstances or of method as 
always occurs in other the most exact narrations. Difficulties of this 
kind could never have arisen, or must have been easily removed, had 
either the impugners or defenders of the Sacred Writings formed 
precise ideas of the nature of inspiration, and attended to its use. 
This was not to teach men history or philosophy j not to instruct them 
in the arts of composition, or the ornaments of human learning ; but 
to make them understand and believe the religion of Jesus. — Dr. 
William Samuel Powell: Discourses, No. IL pp. 41-2. 

The views of inspiration so clearly presented by Dr. Powell seem in 
the main to be those generally adopted by Unitarians. In his fifteenth Dis- 
course, he enters more at large on the subject, particularly in its bearing on 
the Epistles of Paul; — shows that the great apostle had received the doc- 
trines of Christianity from Christ himself, but that his natural faculties and 
his education enabled him to retain the knowledge he had acquired, and to 
impart it to others in a style forcible, but " abounding with broken sentences, 
bold figures, and hard, far-fetched metaphors;" — observes, that, though 
it were possible to prove the Scriptures to have been dictated verbally by the 
Holy Spirit, " it does not appear that any important conclusions would be 
deducible from it;" and closes the discussion with a remark, the justness 
of which will, we think, be admitted by all true Protestants, — that " that 
which " in the Scriptures " is important is also clear; " and " that, whatever 
may be thought of the coloring, the substance of these writings was from 
heaven." 

If we once admit the fallibility of the apostolic judgment, where 
are we to stop, or in what can we rely upon it ? To which question, 
■ . . as arguing for the substantial truth of the Christian history, and 



202 DENIAL OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE BIBLE 

for that alone, it is competent to the advocate of Christianity to reply, 
" Give me the apostles' testimony, and I do not stand in need of their 
judgment ; give me the facts, and I have complete security for every 
conclusion I want." . . . The two following cautions . . . will exclude all 
uncertainty upon this head which can be attended with danger : First, 
To separate what was the object of the apostolic mission, and declared 
by them to be so, from what was extraneous to it, or only incidentally 
connected with it. . . . Secondly, That, in reading the apostolic writings, 
we distinguish between their doctrines and their arguments. Their 
doctrines came to them by revelation properly so called j yet, in pro- 
pounding these doctrines in their writings or discourses, they were 
wont to illustrate, support, and enforce them' by such analogies, argu- 
ments, and considerations, as their own thoughts suggested. . . . The 
doctrine itself must be received ; but it is not necessary, in order to 
defend Christianity, to defend the propriety of every comparison, or 
the validity of every argument, which the apostle has brought into the 
discussion. — Dr. Wm. Paley : Evidences of Christianity, part iii. 
chap. 2; in Works, pp. 412-13. 

We have omitted the illustrations by which this clear-headed thinker 
supports his reasoning, drawn from the belief of the evangelists in the 
reality of demoniacal possession, and from the erroneous opinion attributed 
to the apostles, and supposed to be found in their writings, that the day oi 
judgment was to approach in their own times. But, as Paley' s work is 
well known, the whole chapter can easily be referred to. 

The history of the New Testament remains in the main true, 
although the narrator may deviate from what actually took place, in 
describing immaterial collateral circumstances, or may, through mis- 
take, alter or add something in such collateral incidents ; and although 
he may adopt words somewhat varying from those actually used by 
the characters occurring in the history. It is sufficient if only the 
facts themselves are not fabricated, the thoughts and sentiments of 
the actors and speakers not perverted, and the truths which they 
propound not mixed with falsehood. In this sense we maintain that 
the history contained in the New Testament is true. The material 

facts are not affected The truth of an event in general depends 

not upon single words, nor on trivial temporary limitations and colla- 
teral incidents ; but the question is, whether the fact be true. Each 
narrator has recorded it somewhat differently according to his own 
observation, and the different way by which he arrived at the know- 
ledge cd it. This very variety confirms the truth of the evangelic 



NOT A DENIAL OF REVELATION. 203 

history. A suspicion would naturally arise against them, if each of 
the evangelists had narrated every thing to the minutest circumstance 
in the very same words. — G. F. Seller: Biblical Hermeiieulics, 
§§ 298, 326. 

It is my profound conviction that St. John and St. Paul were 
divinely inspired; but I totally disbelieve the dictation of any one 
word, sentence, or argument, throughout their writings. Observe, 
there was revelation. . . . Revelations of facts were undoubtedly made 
to the prophets ; revelations of doctrines were as undoubtedly made to 
John and Paul ; — but is it not a mere matter of our very senses 
that John and Paul each dealt with those revelations, expounded 
them, insisted on them, just exactly according to his own natural 
strength of intellect, habit of reasoning, moral and even physical tem- 
perament ? We receive the books ascribed to John and Paul as their 
books on the judgment of men for whom no miraculous judgment is 
pretended; nay, whom, in their admission and rejection of other 
books, we believe to have erred. Shall we give less credence to John 
and Paul themselves ? Surely the heart and soul of every Christian 
give him sufficient assurance, that, in all things that concern him as 
a man, the words that he reads are spirit and truth, and could only 
proceed from Him who made both heart and souL Understand the 
matter so, and all difficulty vanishes : you read without fear, lest your 
faith meet with some shock from a passage here and there which you 
cannot reconcile with immediate dictation by the Holy Spirit of God, 
without an absurd violence offered to the text. You read the Bible as 
the best of all books, but still as a book, and make use of all the 
means and appliances which- learning and skill, under the blessing of 
God, can afford towards rightly apprehending the general sense of it ; 
not solicitous to find out doctrine in mere epistolary familiarity, or facts 
in clear ad hominem et pro tempore allusions to national traditions. — 
S. T. Coleridge : Table Talk ; in Works, vol. vi. pp. 386-7. 

The same laws of criticism which teach us to distinguish between 
various degrees of testimony, authorize us to assign the very highest 
rank to the evidences of the writings of St. John and St. PauL If 
belief is to be given to any human compositions, it is due to these ; yet, 
if we believe these merely as human compositions, and without assum- 
ing any thing as to then* divine inspiration, our Christian faith, as it 
seems to me, is reasonable ; not merely the facts of our Lord's miracles 
and resurrection, but Christian faith in all its fulness, the whole dis- 
pensation of the Spirit, the revelation of the redemption of man and 



204 DENIAL OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE BIBLE 

of the Divine Persons who are its authors, of all that Christian faith 
and hope and love can need. And this is so true, that even without 
reckoning the Epistle to the Hebrews amongst St. Paul's writings ; 
nay, even if we choose to reject the three pastoral Epistles ; yet, taking 
only what neither has been nor can be doubted, — the Epistles to the 
Homans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and 
Thessalonians, — we have in these, together with St. John's Gospel 
and First Epistle, — giving up, if we choose, the other two, — a 
ground on which our faith may stand for ever, according to the strict- 
est rules of the understanding, according to the clearest intuitions of 
reason. — Dr. Thomas Arnold : Miscellaneous Works, pp. 280-1. 

It may be fairly questioned, first, whether even its sacred history 
is inspired. For although, wherever a point of faith or practice is 
involved in the historical record, inspiration must be supposed (else 
the application of the record as an infallible rule must be abandoned), 
yet, where this is not the case, there seems to be no necessity for 
supposing inspiration ; and, by not supposing it, several difficulties in 
the attempt to harmonize the sacred historians are removed. Again, 
proceeding still on the principle that the truths to be believed, the 
material of faith, is the point to which the control or suggestions of 
inspiration must have been directed, and to which alone it is necessary 
for constituting the Bible the rule of faith, that it should be directed, — 
the reasoning of the inspired writers may be considered safely as their 
own. I do not mean to impugn the reasoning of any one passage in 
the apostolical writings ; but, were any found open to it, the circum- 
stance would not, according to this view, affect the inspired character 
and authority of the work. — Bishop Hinds : History of Christianity, 
pp. 523-4 ; Appendix, Note I. 

It seems to me far safer, more scriptural, more godly, to suppose 
they [the writers of the Bible] did take pains, and that the Spirit 
taught them to take pains, in sifting facts, than to suppose that they 
were merely told the facts. I most assuredly could not give up the 
faith in God which they have cherished, in me, if I found they had 
made mistakes ; and I have too much respect and honor for those who 
use the strongest expressions about the certainty of every word in the 
Scriptures, to suppose that they would. ... If any one likes to speak 
of plenary inspiration, I would not complain : I object to the inspira- 
tion which people talk of, for being too empty, — not for being too 
full. These forms of speech . . . are not for those who are struggling 
with life and death : such persons want, not a plenary inspiration or a 



NOT A DENIAL OF REVELATION. 205 

verbal inspiration, but a book of life ; and they will know that they 
have such a book when you have courage to tell them that there is a 
Spirit with them who will guide them into the truth of it. — F. D. 
Maurice : Theological Essays, pp. 260-1. 

To say [as is said by Count Gasparin] that authority must cease 
with the slightest admixture of error, is surely opposed to common 
sense and all experience. . . . We might as well say, that testimony 
ceases to be testimony, as that authority ceases to be authority, as 
soon as there is the least admixture of what is doubtful or untrue. 
Applied to the case before us, the inaccuracy of the assertion is equally 
plain. Were the Scriptures no authority to those early Christians 
who doubted the canonicity of the Epistles of St. James and Jude; or 
to Luther, when he spoke of tossing the Book of Esther into the 
Elbe ; or to Pye Smith, when he disowned the Song of Solomon ? 
Is a man's Christian faith at an end, and his submission to the word 
of God destroyed, the moment he rejects the last verses of St. Mark, 
or stands in doubt whether to receive or reject the verse of the three 
heavenly witnesses ? Such rash statements are equally rash and mis- 
chievous. They bind heavy burdens upon the weak faith of infants in 
the family of Christ, which crush them into blind credulity, if passively 
accepted ; or repel them into dangerous incredulity, if hastily flung 
away. There are several books and many verses of the Bible, in which 
it has not pleased God that the evidence of canonicity should be as clear 
as that which attests the main facts and fundamental doctrines of the 
gospel. A faith in the plenary inspiration of such portions can never 
rank among the vitals of Christianity. Men ought to ask themselves 
whether they are not tampering with their conscience or their reason, 
before they can look on it in this light, and persuade themselves into 

a conclusion which is obviously ill-founded and mischievous If a 

perfect code, exempt from the slightest measure of error, or the least 
haze upon the horizon, were essential to the nature of a divine revela- 
tion, we should be compelled to contradict the plainest facts, and assert 
the infallibility of every version of the Bible, and every copy of every 
version. Those who read it in this form are millions to one, compared 
with those who could have access to the original autographs. In the 
case of the whole Bible, it is certain that no one person can ever have 
enjoyed this privilege. The degree of error, then, which is disclosed 
by various readings and imperfect versions, is plainly quite consistent 
with the great practical object of a message from God to man. There 
can thus be no a priori reason why the same degree of error in the 

18 



206 THE DOGMA OF THE BIBLE'S INFALLIBILITY 

autographs themselves might not be consistent with the purpose and 

character of a divine message The maxim [that the infallibility 

or inspiration of the Scriptures admits of no degrees, as asserted by 
Count Gasparin] does equal violence to the instincts of every Chris- 
tian, confirmed by the daily experience of the church of God. The 
New Testament is felt to be more precious than the Old ; the Psalms 
and Isaiah, than the Minor Prophets, or the appendices of the sacred 
history. What Christian, unless under some strange bias, can read 
Ezra ii. 45-54 and John hi. 16 in succession, and seriously affirm that 
they are of equal dignity and spiritual excellence ? . . . Truths equally 
true are not all of equal importance, and may differ widely, both in 
the ulness of spiritual wisdom from which they emanate, and their 
tendency to maintain the spiritual life of the church of God. — Chris- 
tian Observer for March, 1855 j pp. 180-1, 183, 189-90. 



$ 3. The Dogma of the Infallibility of all Parts of the Bible 
Injurious to the Interests of Christianity. 

All these err in overdoing [that is, all err who assert that Scripture 
excludes as useless the whole law and light of nature ; that it is so 
divine, not only in matter, but in method and style, as to exhibit no 
human imperfection or weakness ; that every passage in the Bible is 
equally obligatory on men of all places and ages ; that the whole of it 
forms so perfect a rule of faith, that nothing which comes in any other 
way is to be taken for certain ; that, in order to be saved, we must 
hold the canonicalness of every book and text of Scripture ; and that 
there are no various readings or doubtful texts, no corruption in writ- 
ten or printed copies]. . . . The dangers of overdoing here are these : 
1. It leadeth to downright infidelity; for, when men find that the 
Scripture is imperfect or wanting in that which they fancy to be part 
of its perfection, and to be really insufficient, . . . they will be apt to 
say, " It is not of God, because it hath not that which it pretends 
to have." 2. God is made the author of defects and imperfections. 
3. The Scripture is exposed to the scorn and confutation of infidels. — 
Richard Baxter: Christian Directory ; in Practical Works, vol. \. 
pp. 562-5. 

The most dangerous objections which can be made to the truth of 
our religion, and such as are most difficult to answer, are those drawn 
from the different relations of the four evangelists. The " Fragments * 



INJURIOUS TO CHRISTIANITY. 207 

published by Lessing insist chiefly on this objection ; but the whole 
vanishes into nothing, unless we ourselves give it that importance 
which it has not in itself, by assuming an unnecessary hypothesis. — 
J. D. Michaelis : Introd. to New Testament, vol. i. pp. 75-6. 

No intelligent Christian will distinguish it by that name [will dis- 
tinguish the Bible by calling it the " word of God "], without a large 
restriction of its contents. All we assert respecting it is, that it is a 
collection of writings, containing a history of the divine dispensations 
to our world, and that the proper word of God, with numberless other 
particulars, is interwoven all the way through these most ancient and 
invaluable writings. — David Simpson : Plea for Religion, p. 222. 

Had the distinction which Mr. Simpson, in common with the generality 
of Unitarians, makes between the word of God and the books containing it, 
been attended to by Christian divines in general, instead of their confound- 
ing terms of a widely different meaning, many of the objections urged by 
unbelievers would have lost their force; and neither the curses of a Hebrew 
bard, the mistakes of an evangelist, nor the inconsequential reasonings of an 
apostle, would have been regarded as at all affecting the credibility of a 
revelation from God. 

They who read it [the Sacred Volume] with "an evil heart of 
unbelief" and an alien spirit, — what boots for them the assertion that 
every sentence was miraculously communicated to the nominal author 
by God himself ? Will it not rather present additional temptations to 
the unhappy scoffers, and furnish them with a pretext of self-justifica- 
tion ? I am told that this doctrine must not be resisted or 

called in question, because of its fitness to preserve unity of faith, and 
for the prevention of schism and sectarian byways ! Let the man who 
holds this language trace the history of Protestantism, and the growth 
of sectarian divisions, ending with Dr. Hawker's ultra-Calvinistic Tracts, 
and Mr. Belsham's New Version of the Testament And then let 
him tell me, that, for the prevention of an evil which already exists, 
and which the boasted preventive itself might rather seem to have 
occasioned, I must submit to be silenced by the first learned infidel 
who throws in my face the blessings of Deborah, or the cursings of 
David, or the Grecisms and heavier difficulties in the biographical 
chapters of the Book of Daniel, or the hydrography and natural philo- 
sophy of the patriarchal ages, — I must forego the means of silencing, 
and the prospect of convincing, an alienated brother, because I must 
not thus answer : " My brother, what has all this to do with the truth 
and the worth of Christianity ? ... If, though but with the faith of a 



208 THE DOGMA OF THE BIBLE'S INFALLIBILITY 

Seneca or an Antonine, you admit the co-operation of a divine Spirit 
in souls desirous of good, even as the breath of heaven works vari- 
ously in each several plant according to its kind, character, period of 
growth, and circumstance of soil, clime, and aspect, — on what ground 
can you assume that its presence is incompatible with all imperfection 
in the subject, even with such imperfection as is the natural accompani- 
ment of the unripe season ? . . . I demand for the Bible only the justice 
which you grant to other books of grave authority, and to other prcved 
and acknowledged benefactors of mankind. Will you deny a spirit 
of wisdom in Lord Bacon, because in particular facts he did not pos- 
sess perfect science, or an entire immunity from the positive errors 
which result from imperfect insight ? . . . Thenceforward your doubts 
will be confined to such parts or passages of the received canon as 
seem to you irreconcilable with known truths, and at variance with the 
tests given in the Scriptures themselves, and as shall continue so to 
appear after you have examined each in reference to the circumstances 
of the writer or speaker, the dispensation under which he lived, 
the purpose of the particular passage, and the intent and object of the 
Scriptures at large." — S. T. Coleridge : Confessions of an Inquir* 
ing Spirit; in Works, vol. v. pp. 599, 602-3, 606. 

For Coleridge's utterances of deep and fervid admiration of the Holy 
Scriptures, to which all Christians will respond, recourse should be had to 
the work itself. 

Those who affirm, in a general and indiscriminate manner, that all 
and every the parts of the Old Testament were immediately dictated 
by the Holy Spirit, and that to each the same kind of inspiration 
belongs, appear to me to go farther than the evidence warrants, and to 

lay the cause of revealed religion under the feet of its enemies 

These facts [erroneous statements of numbers in the Old Testament] 
must fearfully affect the theory of a servile literality of inspiration. 
It is that theory which has put the most ostensibly powerful arms into 
the hands of the foes to God and man. The efforts which are at this 
moment made, amongst the metaphysical and religious distractions of 
Germany, by Wislicenus, Uhlich, and other real or pretended Hegelians, 
find a chief standing-point in their assuming that the Christian faith 
requires a literal understanding of the phraseology in the Bible which 
speaks of divine acts -and of natural objects in the manner that was 
adapted to the temporary and local state of human knowledge. — 
Dr. John Pye Smith : Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, voL L 
pp. 27, 30. 



INJURIOUS TO CHRISTIANITY. 209 

These principles of interpretation [this, in particular, that " Scrip- 
ture is its own interpreter"] were forgotten, this pre-eminence of 
scriptural above human system strangely reversed, by the successors 
of the Reformers [in Germany]. . . . False ideas of inspiration, intro- 
duced by the imaginary necessities of the argument with the Roman- 
ists, contributed to the same result : from the first assunmtion, that 
the whole of Scripture was immediately dictated by the Holy Spirit, 
was derived a second, that all must be of actual value. To prove this, 
it was supposed that the same doctrines, the same fundamental truths 
of Christianity, must be not implied merely, but expressed, by all ; a 
theory which must, of necessity, do much violence to the sacred text, 
while it overlooked the beautiful arrangement, according to which the 
different doctrines of revelation are each prominently conveyed by 
that mind which was most adapted to its reception. . . . Yet greater 
confusion must obviously be the result of the same theory, when 
applied to the Old Testament The difference of the law and the 
gospel, which Luther had so vividly seen, was obliterated, the shadow 
identified with the substance, the preparatory system with the perfect 
disclosure. Not content with finding the germs of Christian doctrine 
in the Old Testament, or those dawning rays which were to prepare 
the mental eye for the gradual reception of fuller light, but whose 
entire character could only be understood by those who should witness 
the rising of that luminary whose approach they announced ; they not 
only considered prophecy as being throughout an inverted history, but 
held that all the distinguishing doctrines of Christianity were even to 
the Jews as much revealed in the Old Testament as in the New, and 
that the knowledge of these doctrines was as necessary to their salva- 
tion as to ours. No scientific error seems to liave prepared so much 
for the subsequent re-action, in which all prophecy was discarded, all 
doctrine considered to be precarious. . . . The Scriptures, thus handled, 
instead of a living word, could not but become a dead repository of 
barren technicalities. Less important, lastly, though perhaps in its 
effects more immediately dangerous, was the corollary to the same 
theory of inspiration, that even historical passages, in which no reli- 
gious truth was contained, were equally inspired with the rest, and 
consequently that no error, however minute, could even here be 
admitted. Yet, the imparting of religious truth being the object 
of revelation, any further extension of inspiration would appear an 
unnecessary miracle, as indeed it is one nowhere claimed by the writers 

of the New Testament. The faith of the Christian depends no* 

18* 






210 THE DOGMA OF THE BIBLE'S INFALLIBILITY 



upon the reception of one or the other book of Scripture ; and it has 
been a supposition pregnant with mischief, that any doubt respecting 
an individual portion of the Sacred Volume necessarily implies a 
diminished value for its whole contents, or a weakened reverence 
and gratitude towards its divine Giver. — E. B. Pusey : Causes of 
the Rationalist Character predominant in the Theology of Germany, 
pp. 28-32, 154; Lond. 1828. 

" It is remarkable," says a critic in the North British Review for Feb- 
ruary, 1854, " that the first elaborate defence of German divines proceeded 
from the pen of Dr. Pusey, who, though he has retracted his book, has not 
refuted his arguments." 

While Christians of all denominations have ever agreed in admit- 
ting the inspiration of the New Testament, on no one point perhaps 
has there been a greater diversity of opinion than on the character of 
this inspiration. On this diversity of view, one general remark may 
be hazarded ; and it will be found, I think, warranted by historical 
fact. In proportion as inspiration has been made to approach to a 
complete inditing of the Scriptures, the Scriptures have been ne- 
glected. The consequence of the study and application of the Bible, 
from the period of the Reformation, has been, gradually and progress- 
ively, to limit the extent of inspiration ; and, by so doing, to vindicate 
the holy character of what is unquestionably of divine origin, and to 
make the application of the rule of faith more sure. It was only 
perhaps in the worst ages of superstition, that an entire inspiration of 
matter, words, and composition generally, like that asserted of the 
Koran, was universally contended for. — Bishop Hinds : History of 
Christianity, pp. 520-1 ; Appendix, Note I. 

It is great folly to turn our faith in Christianity into a Rupert's 
drop, which must fly into shivers the moment the Book of Obadiah or 
of Esther, or the second and third Epistles of St. John, or even a few 
disputed verses, are broken from the canon by an error of judgment. 
Such confused, ill-judging defences of the truth must naturally breed 
scepticism by wholesale, whenever they do not fall on the rich soil of 
a Protestant Popery, which receives any reasoning with implicit faith 

that leads to a foregone conclusion Infallibility, or perfect 

freedom from all error, must perish with one faulty reading or erro- 
neous version : consequently, the logical result of the whole process, 
which the author [Count Gasparin] commends as the only entrance to 
the School of Faith, is to leave our faith without any foundation 
whatever. It becomes an inverted pyramid, resting on its point ; and 



INJURIOUS TO CHRISTIANITY. 211 

this point itself is lost and buried in the sands i>f a hundred versions 
and ten thousand various readings. — Christian Observer for March, 
1855; pp. 188, 192. 

It will be seen, that, amid some diversity of opinion as to the precise 
natur3 of the inspiration possessed by the writers of the Bible, none of the 
authors from whom we have quoted, with the equivocal exception of Gas 
parin, would defend the old opinion, still believed by ignorant multitudes, 
that every word contained in the Bible was dictated by the Spirit of God ; 
that no mistake or error exists in the Sacred Records, whether relating to 
science or to history, to sentiment or to reasoning, to philosophy or to reli- 
gion ; that the books embraced in the present canons of the Old and New 
Testament, neither more nor less, and each and all parts, whether patri- 
archal, Jewish, or Christian, — whether historical, poetical, prophetic, or 
doctrinal, — whether obscure or plain, mysterious or intelligible, — are 
equally divine, and equally binding on the consciences and hearts of the 
disciples of Jesus. 

It would be egregious trifling seriously to refute such a mass of absur- 
dities; and even the professed defenders of plenary inspiration are forced to 
make so many exceptions and restrictions to their theory as to render it 
practically useless, and to involve, after all, the principle of an inspiration 
which is only partial, and of an infallibility which is not absolutely perfect. 
We think it obvious that the Bible contains numerous passages, and even 
some entire books, which can in no proper sense be termed divine revela- 
tion ; that neither the Book of Esther nor the Song of Solomon possesses 
any religious character whatever; that the historical portions of the Old and 
New Testament, though containing in the main a true record of things 
divine and supernatural as well as human, are not in themselves a revelation 
from heaven, any more than are the historical works of Gibbon, Hume, and 
Robertson; that the reasonings and inferences of the sacred writers, the 
modes in which they expressed their thoughts, and the images which they 
used to illustrate their doctrines, are as much human as those of classical 
and profane authors, who have given to the world the products of their 
learning or their genius. We are far from meaning to put the Gospels and 
the Acts, as to the value of their contents, on an equality with the histories 
of the Roman empire, or of the kingdoms of England and Scotland ; nor 
would we at all imply, that, in our opinion, the Books of Moses and the 
Prophets, or the Epistles of Paul, Peter, and John, are not of more intrinsic 
worth than the best productions of any philosophic or historical school. 
They are no doubt immeasurably superior, not in the pomp of their expres- 
sions or in the harmony of their periods, — though many portions will, as to 
beauty or sublimity of style, bear a comparison with the finest compositions 
of ancient or modern times, — but in the grandeur of the subjects treated 
of, and in the fact, that, though not free from some of the errors of the times 
in which thev were written, they contain those revelations of the Infinite 






212 THE SCRIPTURES INVALUABLE. 

Mind which speak to the human heart and conscience, with a clearer, a more 
penetrating and authoritative voice, than unassisted reason ever did, of the 
character and designs of God ; of the capacities, duties, responsibilities, and 
destiny of man. 

To prove the correctness of these opinions accords not with the purposes 
we have in view. We have expressed them, because they seem to us well 
founded, and harmonize either with the sentiments we have quoted from 
Trinitarian writers, or with principles involved in the acknowledgment by 
others of a partial inspiration, a disputable canon, a corrupt text, contradic- 
tory versions, and fallible interpretations. And we have dwelt more at length 
on this subject, not only because it is interesting in itself, and forms an 
essential feature in the discussions of the present day as to the conflicting 
claims of naturalism and supernaturalism, but also because one of the 
strongest obstacles to inquiry into the truth of Unitarian principles has had 
its origin in the outcry sometimes raised by orthodox divines against Unita- 
rians for denying the plenary inspiration of the sacred penmen, and rejecting 
from the canon certain verses, chapters, and books ; as if this denial and 
rejection went to prove their contempt of revelation itself, and their secret 
conviction that the doctrines which they uphold are discountenanced in the 
Holy Scriptures. But it is shown that this inference is altogether ground- 
less ; for opinions of the same or of a similar kind have been entertained by 
not a few of the best men and most acute thinkers belonging to the Trini- 
tarian body. Believing, with Unitarians, that, with very few exceptions, the 
books of which the Bible is made up are the holiest and the most instructive 
that have ever been written, and that they are invaluable from their con- 
taining the records of God's revelations to his human family, they have felt 
unable to close their eyes to the fact, that there are in them many errors 
and discrepancies, which, though not affecting the substantial truth of the 
narratives, doctrines, and principles they contain, preclude altogether the 
conception of infallibility on the part of the writers, or of pure and abso- 
lute truth in every part of their compositions. 

It cannot be denied that Unitarians have disputed the genuineness of 
certain books and texts in the Bible which are supposed to have a bearing 
on the Trinitarian controversy; but so have also many learned men in 
the ranks of the orthodox; and the proper question to be asked is, not 
" What are the motives by which you are actuated in questioning these 
books and texts? " but " What are your reasons for deciding in favor of 
their spuriousness or their corruption V" To say nothing of the impro- 
priety of confounding inspiration with genuineness, it may be remarked, 
that the charge of dealing falsely with the word of God comes with a bad 
grace from persons who are confessedly unable to cite a single passage of 
Scripture in which the doctrine of a Triune God is expressly mentioned, 
against those who can adduce passages unequivocally and plainly declara- 
tive of their great doctrine that God is one, and that the Father is the only 
true God. — But we are anticipating another portion of our work, and for 
bear dwelling on this point. 



WRONG TREATMENT OF SCRIPTURE. 213 



SECT. VI. — THE IMPROPER TREATMENT OF SCRIPTURE. 

We pick out a text here and there to make it serye our turn ; whereas, if we take 
It altogether, and considered what went before, and what followed after, we should 
find it meant no such thing. — John Selden. 

In ever} 7 age, man has imported his own crazes into the Bible, fancied that he saw 
them there, and then drawn sanctions to his wickedness or absurdity from what were 
nothing else than fictions of his own. — Thomas De Quincey. 

"What monstrous absurdities will not fanatics be able to elicit from 
the Scripture, if they are permitted to allege every detached and ill- 
understood word and syllable in confirmation of then- notions? — 
John Calvin : Institutes, book iv. chap. xvii. 23. 

It is no wonder if they can accommodate Scripture expressions to 
their own dreams and fancies ; for, when men's fancies are so possessed 
with schemes and ideas of religion, whatever they look on appears of 
the same shape and color wherewith their minds are already tinctured. 
. . . All the metaphors and similitudes and allegories of Scripture are 
easily applied to their purpose ; and, if any word sound like the tink- 
ling of their own fancies, it is no less than a demonstration that that 
is the meaning of the Spirit of God; and every little shadow and 
appearance doth mightily confirm them in their preconceived opi- 
nions. — Dr. William Sherlock : Knowledge of Christ, chap. iii. 
sect. 4. 

The first and great mark of one who corrupts the word of God, is 
introducing into it human mixtures ; either the errors of others, or 
the fancies of his own brain. . . . Scarce ever was any erroneous opi- 
nion either invented or received, but Scripture was quoted to defend 
it ; and, when the imposture was too barefaced, and the texts cited for 
it appeared too plainly either to make against it, or to be nothing to 
the purpose, then recourse has usually been had to a second method 
of corrupting it, — by mixing it with false interpretations. And this 
is done, sometimes by repeating the words wrong, and sometimes by 
repeating them right, but putting a wrong sense upon them ; one that 
is either strained and unnatural, or foreign to the writer's intention in 
the place from whence they are taken ; perhaps contrary either to his 
intention in that place, or to what he says in some other part of his 
writings. And this is easily effected : any passage is easily perverted, 
by being recited singly, without any of the preceding or following 
verses. — John Wesley: Sermon 133; in Works, vol. ii. p. 504. » 



214 WRONG TREATMENT OF SCRIPTURE. 

There is no more common error in many departments of study 
and especially in theology, than the prevalence of a love of system 
over the love of truth. Men are often so much captivated by the 
aspect of what seems to them a regular, beautiful, and well-connected 
theory, as to adopt it hastily, without inquiring, in the outset, how far 
it is conformable to facts or to scriptural authority ; and thus, often on 
one or two passages of Scripture, have built up an ingenious and con- 
sistent scheme, of which the far greater part is a tissue of their own 
reasonings and conjectures. — Archbishop Whately : Essays on 
Difficulties in PauVs Writings, pp. 243-4. 

Too many nominal Christians entertain only the most miserable 
idea of the nature of the gospel they profess to believe. Their only 
notion too often consists in a confused general impression of a certain 
sacredness in Scripture, which produces little effect beyond that of 
making them afraid to enter its precincts, and search its recesses for 
themselves, and ye,t more fearful lest its sanctity should be invaded by 
others. And their dread of openly encountering any contradictions, 
and their anxious desire to shelter themselves under even the most 
frivolous explanations, if it does not betray a lurking distrust of the 
proper evidences of their faith, at least evinces the lowest and most 
unworthy conceptions of the spirit and meaning of the Bible, and an 
almost total absence of due distinction between the design and appli- 
cation of the several portions of which it is made up. That such 
misconception should prevail is indeed a lamentable, but not a sur- 
prising, instance of the liability of human nature to misapply the best 
gifts, whether of providence or grace. And its influence has been 
unhappily cherished and confirmed by the prevalence of those theo- 
logical systems which have dictated the practice of literalizing upon 
all the expressions of the sacred writers; so that the magnificent 
imagery of the finest passages of inspiration is reduced to the lowest 
standard of verbal dogmatism ; and minds incapable of appreciating 
the divine sublimity of those descriptions think to add to the evidence 
of their truth by a forced and unnatural perversion of their meaning. 
With others, again, the sincere, but (as we must consider it) misguided, 
spirit of religious fanaticism produces similar effects. Blinded to all 
but the internal light of his spiritual impressions, the enthusiast will 
always entertain a deeply-rooted and devoted hostility against any 
such distinctions as those here advocated. Maintaining the literal 
application of every sentence, every syllable, of the divine word, he 
rejects as impious the slightest departure from it. Human reason. 



WRONG TREATMENT OF SCRIPTURE. 215 

along with all science which is its offspring, is at best carnal and 
unsanctified ; and, should any of its conclusions be advanced in con- 
tradiction to the letter of a scriptural text, this completely seals its 
condemnation as absolutely sinful, and equivalent to a rejection of 
revelation altogether. — Baden Powell : Connection of Natural 
and Divine Truth, pp. 242-3. 

A want of due investigation of what is really the proper object of 
reverence in the Sacred Volume has caused that reverence to be most 
erroneously applied. When the learned Dr. Bloomfield prefers a 
"charge of irreverence for the Book which was intended to make 
men wise unto salvation " (Pref. p. x.), against those who, like Gries- 
bach, would alter the commonly received text, he begs the question, 
that that text constitutes that Book ; a point which cannot be conceded 
to him. That text is now clearly discovered to be, in numerous places, 
a corruption of " the Book " w T hich demands our reverence ; and our 
reverence is evinced in restoring it from the corruptions which it has 
sustained, to the most ancient and purest standard that we possess. 
Thus, our reverence for " the Book " is to be ascertained by determining 
the previous question, " Which is the Book to which our reverence is 
legitimately due ? " If we direct it to the least corrupted, there is no 
irreverence ; if to the most corrupted, the reverence savors of super- 
stition and of bigotry. — Granyllle Penn : Annotations to the Book 
of the New Covenant, p. 43. 

Few sources of error have been more copious, above all in the 
interpretation of the Scriptures, than the propensity to realize images 
— which, in fact, is a main element in all idolatry, — and to deduce 
general propositions from incidental and partial illustrations. — JULIUS 
Charles Hare : The Victory of Faith, p. 37. 

Any human abstract which comes in between my Bible and me 
distorts Scripture, to some extent, by abridging it. It brings things 
together which were separate, giving them its own arrangement ; it 
destroys delicate shades of meaning, and cuts off all the brilliancy and 
the life of the word. The dried flower in a collection still preserves 
its essential characteristics, and suffices for the classification of the 
botanist, though it has lost its shape, and its hang, and its delicate 
colors, and its sweet smeLL But Christianity, dried up in a confession 
of faith, does not even retain all its characteristics : the proportion of 
its parts is all changed, and the eye of the believer can scarcely recog- 
nize it. — Count Agenor de Gasparin : Tlie Schools of Doubt and 
thi School of Faith, p. 177. 



216 WRONG TREATMENT OF SCRIPTURE. 

When we see methods of interpretation applied to them which no 
other book will bear, and which would hold any one up to scorn if he 
should adopt them in explaining a classic, how can it be expected that 
the understanding and reason will not distrust them, and sooner or 
later be sure to revolt against them ? Among all the abuses of the Old 
Testament, none are more conspicuous than those which result from 
sectarian views and purposes. What a mere lump of wax does the 
Bible become in the hands of a zealous defender of sect, perfectly mould- 
able at his pleasure ! No laws of language or of grammar stand in his 
way. The original intention of the writer of the Scripture is little or 
nothing to the purpose. The occult meaning is summoned to his aid j 
and this is always ready, at his bidding, to assume every possible form. 
Armed in this way, his antagonists are cut down by whole ranks at a 
blow, and the standard of sect waves speedily over that of the Bible. — 
Moses Stuart: Crit. Hist of the Old-Test. Canon, pp. 410-11. 

Nothing can be more preposterous [than the law of rigidly literal 
interpretation]. All agree that the Scriptures ought to be so inter- 
preted as to express the mind of their Author, and the sense which 
the writers of them intended to convey. ... If there be doubtful and 
obscure passages in their writings, they are to be rendered clear and 
intelligible by those that are not obscure and doubtful. ... To affirm 
a literal construction of those passages which are professedly contained 
in the most figurative and symbolical books of the Scriptures, would 
go far toward destroying all the fixed laws of sound interpretation. 
This would be to make prose of poetry, and bold imagery as though 
it were doctrinal statement. No sober man would interpret such 
passages as one would interpret a law, a deed, a contract, or a last will 
and testament. To do so would be a perversion of language, and an 
outrage upon common sense and common honesty. — Dr. Gardiner 
Spring : Glory of Christ, vol. ii. pp. 109-11. 

No man will call in question what he concedes to be a real decision 
of God, however made ; but there have been, and still are, those who 
think so much more of the verbal revelations of God than of any 
other, that they almost overlook the fact, that the foundations of all 
possible knowledge have been laid by God in the consciousness and 
the intuitive perceptions of the mind itself. Forgetful of this fact, 
they have often, by unfounded interpretations of Scripture, done vio- 
lence to the mind, and overruled the decisions made by God himself 
through it, and then sought shelter in faith and mystery. — DR. 
Edward Beecher : Conflict of tiges, p. 20. 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 217 



SECT. VII. — PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION, 
APPLICABLE CHIEFLY TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

A critic on the sacred book should be 
Candid and learned, dispassionate and free ; 
Free from the wayward bias bigots feel, 
From fancy's influence, and intemperate zeal. 



Cowpee. 



§ 1. Criticism. 



Before presenting the laws of criticism commonly laid down by Biblical 
scholars, it may be well, for the sake of those who have paid little attention 
to the subject, to quote the following observations on the manuscripts of the 
New Testament, by Dr. G. J. Planck (Introduction to Sacred Philology, 
p. 51): "By means of the most laborious researches, the latest efforts of 
criticism have resulted in the conclusion, that most of the manuscripts 
which we possess belong to three families, or may be traced to three recen- 
sions, the diversity of which cannot be doubted. An Alexandrine, a Con- 
stantinopolitan, and a Western copy, may have been the originals of all the 
manuscripts, amounting to some hundreds, which we have of the writings 
of the New Testament. Another recension, arising from Asia, may perhaps 
be added to these." 

[1] The first place belongs to ancient, uninterpolated, good Greek 
copies. Their authority is paramount. From them chiefly should 
the text be derived. The nearer their testimony approaches to una- 
nimity, the greater certainty belongs to it. And the authority of 
ancient manuscripts is unquestionably superior to that of the modern, 
though the number of the latter is very much greater. — Dr. Samuel 
Davidson : Treatise on Biblical Criticism, vol ii. p. 380. 

Dr. John Hey (Lectures in Divinity, vol. i. p. 48) and other critics 
remark, what is obviously just, but not always borne in mind, that " the 
earlier manuscript, cceleris paribus, is more likely to be right than the later, 
because every copying is liable to new errors." 

The modification to which this rule is subject, we present from the pen 
of G F. Seiler (Biblical Hermeneutics, § 235, 1): " As the value of a manu- 
script rests not only on its antiquity, but also on the authority of the class 
or family to which it belongs, and on the antiquity of that codex from which 
it was immediately taken, a manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century 
may thus be of far more value than one which has descended from the fifth 
century to our times ; namely, when the manuscript of the tenth century 
can be proved to have been immediately derived from one of the third or 
fourth " 

\9 






218 BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

[2] Generally speaking, a more difficult reading, ccderis paribus 
as to evidence, is to be preferred to one which is altogether easy. . . . 
Transcribers would naturally change that which is obscure for that 
which is simple, and not vice versa. — Dr. S. P. Tregelles : Tlvt 
Book of Revelation, Introduction, p. xxxi. 

Referring to his own rule, which is similar to that just given, Thomas 
Hartwell, Hokxe (Introduction, p. 292) remarks: "This canon is the 
touchstone which distinguishes the true critics from the false. Bengel, 
Wetstein, and Griesbach, critics of the first rank, have admitted its 
authority ; but those of inferior order generally prefer the easy reading, for 
no other reason than because its meaning is most obvious." 

[3] That reading should be regarded as genuine from which all 
the others may be naturally and easily derived. — Dr. Samuel 
Davidson : Treatise on Biblical Criticism, p. 376. 

To illustrate this principle, Dr. Davidson says : " In 1 Tim. iii. 16, if 
be were the true reading, the alteration of it into &ebg would readily suggest 
itself to those who knew that the * mystery of godliness ' related to the 
Divine Word. And bg naturally gave rise to 6, the neuter, for the sake of 
grammatical accuracy. But, if tfeoc were the original reading, it is difficult 
to understand why or how bg could come into the mind of critics and tran- 
scribers. Still more difficult is it to imagine o giving rise to fiebg or bg. 
Hence, by this canon, bg should be preferred." 

[4] A reading contradictory to a doctrine which the same apostle 
has delivered in another passage is to be regarded as spurious, because 
contradictions are improbable in an accurate writer, and impossible in 
one who is divinely inspired. — J. D. Michaelis : Introduction to the 
New Testament, vol. i. p. 328. 

Or, as more simply expressed by G. F. Seiler (Biblical Hermeneutics, 
§ 235, 13): " A reading which harmonizes with the style and manner of 
thinking of any of the writers of the New Testament is to be preferred to 
another which is less agreeable thereto." 

[5] The reading of a passage which contains a disputed doctrine in 
religion is strongly to be suspected in the event of doubts arising 
respecting its genuineness, when there are only some testimonies 
against it ; for it is fair to conjecture that it may have been altered 
through a zeal for orthodoxy. — G. F. Seiler : Biblical Hermeneutics* 
§ 235, 14. 

In accordance with this remark, Dr. Davidson (Treatise on Biblical 
Criticism, vol. ii. p. 378) says that " readings which strongly favor orthodox 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 219 

opinions are suspicious. Hence tfedc, in 1 Tim. iii. 16, was made out of be. 
1 John v. 7 may also be referred to this head. So, too, debv inserted in the 
fourth verse of Jude's Epistle. Perhaps the reading debc in John i. 18, 
instead of vlbc, belongs here." 

T. Hartwell Horne (Introduction, vol. i. p. 285) says, " It is a fact 
that some corruptions have been designedly made by those who are termed 
orthodox, and have subsequently been preferred when so made, in order to 
favor some received opinion, or to preclude an objection against it." Among 
other texts which have been thus corrupted, he instances Mark xiii. 32. 
Luke xxii. 43. 

J. D. Michaelis (Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. pp. 323 -6) 
speaks to the same purpose. 

[6] Conjectural readings, strongly supported by the sense, the 
connection, the nature of the language, or similar texts, may some- 
times have probability, especially when it can be shown that they 
would easily have given occasion to the present reading. — Dr. 
Gilbert Gerard : Institutes of Biblical Criticism, § 794. 

So also T. Hartwell Horne, in his Introduction, vol. i. p. 2S9. 

In his Principles of Biblical Interpretation, vol. i. pp. 199, 200, J. A. 
Ernesti says: '* Nor is conjectural criticism to be entirely neglected, which 
the most learned and right-thinking theologians have not scrupled occa- 
sionally to use; but rashness must be avoided, and a modest diligence must 
be exerted." 

J. D. Michaelis (Introduction to New Testament, vol. ii. p. 392) ob- 
serves : " There are certain passages in the Greek Testament, in which I 
can hardly refrain from the use of critical conjecture, in opposition to the 
authority of all our written documents ; some of which passages the reader 
will find in my Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews. If it is asked 
why I would admit in those cases the right of critical conjecture in opposi- 
tion to written authority, I answer, Because the text itself, after all the 
pains which have been bestowed upon it, still seems to be sometimes faulty, 
or at least to be capable of an alteration that would be more suitable tu the 
•context, and better adapted to the design of the writer." But, in p. 387, 
this learned and generally candid theologian censures the conduct of those 
44 Socinians " who, endeavoring to act on his own principles, have suggested 
an alteration in the text of John i. 1, and Rom. ix. 5. 

On the other hand, Dr. Davidson (Treatise on Bib. Crit. vol. ii. pp. 371-2) 
6ays, that, in the New Testament, u critical conjecture is rendered wholly 
superfluous by the very copious array of proper resources; so copious that it 
will never desert the critic, or leave him at a loss in determining the reading 
of a particular passage." But he concedes, that, " although it is unneces- 
sary, and therefore improper, to change the Greek words without authority, 
we may freely put forth our judgment in regard to accents, marks of aspira- 
tion, and punctuation, since these formed no part of the primitive text" 






220 BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

[7] A reading certainly expressed in an ancient version is of the 
same authority as if it had been found in a manuscript of the age 
when that version was made, and, consequently, of greater authority 
than if found in any single manuscript now extant ; and that in propor- 
tion to the superior antiquity of the version. — Dr. Gilbert Gerard : 
Institutes, § 336. 

In his Introduction to Sacred Philology, p. 53, Dr. Planck makes the 
following important remarks: " Some of the versions which we have of it 
[of the New Testament] are considerably older than all our manuscripts. . . . 
In all cases, it may be presumed that these translations were made from 
manuscripts which at the time were not entirely new; and therefore the age 
of some may have almost reached that of the autographs. Consequently, 
whenever it can be determined, from one of these versions, what was the 
reading of the manuscript from which the version was made, its antiquity 
gives it an authority vastly superior to that which any manuscript now 
existing can claim." 

[8] When a place is interpolated by the introduction of a suppo- 
sititious clause, the works of the ancient fathers will sometimes enable 
us to infer with tolerable correctness, not only the spuriousness of the 
clause, but also the time when it may have been casually introduced 
into the text. If the place is quoted by many and various writers 
uniformly without the addition, this is a certain proof that it was added 
by some later hand. The first quotation, therefore, in which it occurs, 
affords grounds for conjecturing when and where the interpolation 
was first casually made. — G. J. Planck : Introduction to Scared 
Philology, p. 56. 

" Thus, for example," continues Dr. Planck, " it may be considered as 
one of the most important collateral proofs of the spuriousness of 1 John v. 7, 
that no Greek father, even to the fourth century, seems to have been 
acquainted with it, as it is cited by none for a considerable time after the 
breaking out of the Arian controversies; while, on the other hand, the ear-' 
lier use which was made of it by Latin fathers places it almost beyond 
doubt, that the interpolation was first made in Latin copies, and from these 
introduced into Greek." 



These few rules will probably be sufficient to give the mere Englisn 
reader a general idea of the principles by which Biblical critics are guided 
in respect to the text chiefly of the New Testament. The subject is, un- 
questionably, interesting; for on the purity of the text depends, in a great 
measure, the correctness of the versions taken from it. But, as its study 
demands a great amount of erudition and labor, the unlearned reader of the 
Scriptures will, of course, have, in most cases of difficulty, to confide in 



BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 221 

the results arrived at by men who have devoted their talents and their lives 
to sacred criticism ; his confidence in their decisions being the stronger in 
proportion to the unanimity and acknowledged skill with which they have 
been made by critics of various and opposite denominations. It is conso- 
latory to reflect, that, however desirable it may be to possess the records 
of divine revelation in a state approximating to that in which they were left 
by their respective writers, the essential truths of religion and of Chris- 
tianity are not seriously affected by the corruptions of the original text, or 
by the different and numerous translations of the Bible which have been 
published. 

§ 2. Interpretation. 

[1] When different reasons for the meaning of a word oppose 
each other, greater weight ought to be given to grammatical than to 
dogmatical reasons ; because a proposition may be strictly true which 
is not contained in the words of the text. — J. A. Ernesti : Principles 
of Biblical Interpretation, vol. i. p. 37. 

[2] The more an interpreter changes places altogether with his 
author, in respect to his mode of thinking and his sentiments, the 
happier will he be in discovering and expressing the sense of his 
words. Hence it follows, — 1. That every good interpreter should 
lay aside for the time his own system, in order to study without pre- 
judice the system of his author. 2. That he endeavor to guard, with 
all possible precaution, against transferring into ancient writings any 
modern opinions or dogmas, whether theological or philosophical. — 
G. F. Seiler i Biblical Hermeneutics, § 40. 

These rules will receive illustration from the judicious remarks of 
Baden Powell (Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, p. 248): " When 
a commentator of the present day sets about to put a particular interpreta- 
tion on a passage in an ancient author, he may, upon an examination of the 
critical sense of the words, and the construction of the sentence, make out 
a meaning which to him is plausible, and in itself consistent. But there is 
another question entirely distinct from this, too often quite overlooked, but 
essentially important to a true interpretation; viz., whether it is probable, 
from concurrent circumstances, that this was the sense, in point of fact, 
actually intended by the author. It is one thing to make out such a sense 
as, to our apprehension, the words may bear; quite another, to infer that 
this was the sense really in the mind of the writer." 

[3] Ascertain the usus loquendi, or notion affixed to a word by 
the persons in general by whom the language either is now or formerly 
was spoken, and especially in the particular connection in which such 
notion is affixed. The meaning of a word used by any writer is the 

19* 






222 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 

meaning affixed to it by those for whom he immediately wrote ; for 
there is a kind of natural compact between those who write and those 
who speak a language, by which they are mutually bound to use words 
in a certain sense. — T. Hartwell Horne : Introduction, voL i. 
page 325. 

In the application of this rule, the following remark by Dr. Seiler 
(Biblical Hermeneutics, § 261, 5) should be carefully attended to: " That is 
not always the true sense of the sayings of Jesus and of the writings of the 
apostles, which the Jews, by reason of their prejudices, attached to them; 
but that which they should have attached to them, from a consideration of 
the scope of the speakers and writers, John iii. 5-16 ; vi. 60, et seq. ; viii. 
61-57." 

[4] As every (correct) writer is accustomed to use his words in 
one and the same sense in treating of the same subject, so, in inter- 
preting the books of the New Testament, a difficult passage of an 
evangelist or apostle is best explained by a comparison of parallel 
passages in his own writings. The meaning of Paul's phraseology, for 
instance, is to be determined by a comparison with his own Epistles, 
and that of John by a comparison with his. — G. F. Seiler : Biblical 
Hermeneutics, § 252, 1. 

The qualifying word " correct " is inserted probably by Seller's editor, 
Dr. Wright. 

In applying this rule, the reader may be assisted by the following 
remarks of Archbishop Whately (Sermons on Various Subjects, p. 296): 
" It is an unsafe practice so to dwell on the interpretation of any particular 
word occurring in Scripture, as to imply that each term must have, like 
one of the technical terms of any science, exactly the same meaning in 
every passage where it is employed. It is not an uncommon plan, and it is 
a very dangerous one, to lay down precise definitions of the meaning of 
each of the principal words used in Scripture, and then to interpret every 
sentence in which they occur according to those definitions. The works 
of the sacred writers are popular, not scientific. They did not intend to 
confine themselves, like the author of any philosophical system, to some 
strict technical sense of each word, but expressed their meaning, in each 
passage, in such language as seemed, on each occasion, best fitted tc con- 
vey it." 

[5] Where a word has several significations in common use, that 
must be selected which best suits the passage in question, and which 
is consistent with an author's known character, sentiments, and situa- 
tion, and the known circumstances under which he wrote. — THOMAS 
Hartwell Horne : Introduction, vol. i. p. 325. 



BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 228 

Or, as expressed more briefly by Dr. G. J. Planck (Introduction to 
Sacred Philology, p. 147): "In interpreting a writing, constant reference 
should be had to the character, views, and kno-\vn principles of the writer 
from whom it originates." For this rule he assigns the following reason, — 
" that a man of understanding will not readily act in opposition to his own 
design; will not, in general, easily contradict himself; will not, without 
some evident cause, alter his opinions." 

[6] Wherever any doctrine is manifest, either from the whole 
tenor of divine revelation or from its scope, it must not be weakened 
or set aside by a few obscure passages. — T. Hartwell Horne : 
Introduction, vol. i. p. 343. 

This rule is frequently neglected; but no one will theoretically deny its 
validity. Dr. J. P. Smith (Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. i. p. 57) 
well remarks, that " it is contrary to all just rules of evidence, and to the 
conduct of the best and wisest part of mankind, in relation to innumerable 
cases, philosophical, moral, and political, to violate or renounce great prin- 
ciples, which have been sufficiently established by prior proofs, because 
minor difficulties arise of which we are not able to find a solution." 

[7] General terms are used sometimes in their whole extent, and 
sometimes in a restricted sense ; and whether they are to be under- 
stood in the one way or in the other must depend upon the scope, 
subject-matter, context, and parallel passages. — T. Hartwell Horne : 
Introduction, vol i. p. 325. 

Dr. Gerard (Institutes, § 844) illustrates his rule, which is the same as 
that just quoted, by a great number of examples. Christians of all deno- 
minations will admit its justness and importance; but probably few apply 
it without sometimes being influenced by dogmatical prepossessions. 

[8] Before we conclude upon the sense of a text, so as to prove 
any thing by it, we must be sure that such sense is not repugnant to 
natural reason. — T. Hartwell Horne : Introduction, voL i. p. 326. 

In p. 394, the same writer justly observes, that " articles of revelation 
may be above our reason ; but no doctrine which comes from God can be 
irrational, or contrary to those moral truths which are clearly perceived by 
the mind of man." 

Dr. Robert South (Animadversions on Sherlock's Vindication, p. 133) 
says : " Whatsoever is a truth in natural reason cannot be contradicted by 
any other truth declared by revelation, since it is impossible for any one 
truth to contradict another." 

To the same purpose might be quoted a host of other writers ; but, though 
few would venture to deny the truth of the principle here laid down, there 
are many who seem to act verv inconsistentlv in its application 



224 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 

In our endeavors, however, to arrive at the true sense of any passage \v. 
Scripture, it would be prejudging the matter to take for granted that that 
sense cannot be repugnant to reason ; for, though the supernatural revela- 
tions which are contained in the sacred books never can contradict the 
judgments formed by a right use of the intellectual powers, there is no evi- 
dence for the dogma that all portions of Scripture were given by infallible 
inspiration. Our sole object should therefore be merely to ascertain the 
meaning of a sacred author, without assuming the foregone conclusion that 
it is impossible for him to err, to express a doctrine contrary to reason, or 
to be inconsistent with the views of such other writers as have had better 
opportunities of arriving at the truth, either by natural or supernatural 
means. If, after an investigation pursued in no spirit of reckless scepticism, 
but with a manly freedom blended with caution and docility, a passage 
should be found manifestly opposed to the highest and best conceptions of 
our minds, we may, from the known character and sentiments of the author 
in whose compositions it appears, have some grounds, even without the 
authority of any extant manuscript, for believing the text of that passage 
to be corrupt or interpolated; but, if faithful to the duty of using aright 
the natural gifts bestowed on us by Heaven, we cannot accept, as a decla- 
ration of the divine will, the doctrine which it expresses. 

Suppose, for instance, that a man has been led, by the united voices of 
reason and revelation, — by the light of nature and the whole spirit of Chris 
tianity, — to believe that it is the design of the Creator and Father of the 
human race to bring each and all of his children into the fold of the Saviour, 
through such trials and sufferings as are best adapted to purify and exalt 
their nature; and suppose, too, he find some passages in the Bible unequi- 
vocally declaring or implying the doctrine of unmitigated torture to multi- 
tudes throughout eternity, — he must not bend or distort the language so as 
to make it speak his own sentiments, though, according to the supposition, 
these are founded on a solid basis. We say, " unequivocally declaring or 
implying; " for, if the passages be merely ambiguous or obscure, they can- 
not justly be regarded as erroneous ; or, if highly figurative, they may fail 
to give the precise doctrinal views of the writer; but they are not neces- 
sarily opposed to reason, and may admit an interpretation which is both 
rational and consistent with the writer's opinions as clearly expressed in 
other places of his compositions. 

In this sentiment, that no proposition, repugnant to reason, though it 
were found in books containing God's revealed will, is entitled to credence, 
we are supported, more or less, by the authority of eminent Trinitarians 
Thus S. T. Coleridge, in Literary Remains (Works, vol. v. pp. 193-4), says 
" If we are quite certain that any writing pretending to divine origin con 
tains gross contradictions to demonstrable truths in eodem genere, or com 
mands that outrage the clearest principles of right and wrong, then we may 
be equally certain that the pretence is a blasphemous falsehood; inasmuch 
as the compatibility of a document with the conclusions of self-evident 
reason, and with the laws of conscience, is a condition a priori of any evi- 
dence adequate to the proof of its having been revealed by God." 



BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 225 

Thus, also, Dr. South, in pp. 133-4 of his Animadversions on Sherlock's 
Vindication, asks the Dean " whether it be a proposition true in natural 
reason, that God is one infinite mind or spirit;" and says, that, if this be 
granted, the doctrine that God is three infinite minds or spirits cannot be 
proved true from revelation, " since the certain truth of the first proposition 
supposed and admitted must needs disprove the truth of that revelation 
which pretends to establish the second. ... If it be certainly true from 
reason that God is one infinite mind or spirit, no revelation can or ought to 
be pleaded that he is three distinct infinite minds or spirits." 

We do not, however, believe that, as to the nature and character of the 
Divine Being, there are any contradictions to reason found in the New 
Testament. We have no doubt that the evangelists and apostles all agree 
in recognizing the strict Oneness of God, — the essential and unqualified 
Supremacy of the heavenly Father; a doctrine as rational as it is sublime. 
But if, on the other hand, the dogma of a Trinity in Unity were certainly 
taught by any of the sacred writers, we should feel, that, however repulsive 
it might seem to reason and common sense, we had no right, as interpreters, 
:o carry our own notions into Scripture, and to rationalize its absurdities. 

[9] No doctrine can belong to the analogy of faith which is founded 
on a single text ; for every essential principle of religion is delivered 
in more than one place. — Dr. Gilbert Gerard : Institutes, § 503. 

T. H. Horne (i. 343), having defined the analogy of faith to be " the con 
stant and perpetual harmony of Scripture in the fundamental points of faith 
and practice," lays down the same canon as that given by Dr. Gerard. 

Bishop Hampden (in Bampton Lectures, p. 55) says emphatically that 
M there must be, in fact, a repeated revelation to authorize us to assert that 
this or that conclusion represents to us some truth concerning God." 

S. F. N. Morus, in his Treatise on the Style of the New Testament 
(Biblical Repository, vol. i. p. 430), makes the following sensible remarks 
on this rule of interpretation: " The analogy of faith and doctrine is con- 
tained in the principal maxims and precepts of religion clearly taught. 
This is, as I understand it, a summary of all religious doctrine ; for if such 
evident propositions as that God is one, that he created the world, that he 
governs all things, that he reforms us by his truth, and that there is a future 
state of rewards and punishments, be collected, they will constitute a sum- 
mary of religion; and this constitutes the standard according to which 
svery thing must be interpreted, so that all shall harmonize. It is wrong to 
make this analogy consist in the doctrines approved by any one sect, as the 
Lutherans, Calvinists, or Papists ; for then there would be many analogies : 
each sect would hold up its own religious system as the standard. The 
system of no sect can ever become the law of interpretation; for this refera 
to the plain and evident testimony of Scripture. Nor does the analogy of 
doctrine consist in the system of any particular person; for these systems 
are disposed in order, and the doctrine explained in a manner merely to suit 
the arthors. Such systems cannot be made a rule of interpretation " 



226 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



Could they who dogmatize on sacred subjects peremptorily, be 
persuaded to examine them carefully, we might soon bring to an issue 
those unhappy disputes about the doctrines of Christianity, which, 
though started perhaps with honest intentions, have yet been carried 
on with a most unchristian temper. ... By examination I do not 
mean the rapid effusion of scriptural phrases, which it is far easier to 
accumulate than to connect ; which those who display most ostenta- 
tiously do not always explain most intelligibly ; and in the repetition 
of which it is possible for the understanding to slumber, while the 
memory is exercised, and the fancy captivated. But, in the investiga- 
tion of doctrines on which eternity is suspended, it is necessary to 
trace every word through its significations, whether primary or sub- 
ordinate, common or appropriate ; to analyze every sentence into its 
component parts ; to mark the connection of those parts to each other, 
and the relation of the whole to preceding or subsequent passages ; to 
account for local and temporary circumstances; to bear in mind on 
what occasion any doctrine is introduced, and to what persons it is 
addressed ; to determine ambiguous texts by such as are more defi- 
nite, — the obscure by such as are plain ; to support general doctrines 
by particular proofs, not with the licentiousness of arbitrary assump- 
tion, but the calmness and precision of elaborate induction ; not to be 
staggered by accidental difficulties, the solution of which progressive 
knowledge or persevering industry may supply ; never to be seduced 
by indirect or partial expressions into a desertion of those leading, 
indisputable truths on which revelation is known to hinge. — Dr. 
Samuel Parr : Sermons on Faith and Morals ; in Works, vol. vi. 
pp. 616-17. 



The principles of interpreting Scripture which we have quoted are taken 
from writers of eminent merit belonging to the orthodox body, and will 
probably be regarded by all Protestants, worthy of the name, as substan- 
tially correct, whatever notions they may hold respecting the inspiration of 
the Bible, and the canonicity of its various books. Their bearing on the 
great question at issue between Trinitarians, and the believers in the simple 
oneness of the Divine Being, will often be noticed in the succeeding volumes 
of this work. In attempting to apply them, may both writer and reader be 
pervaded by a single-minded desire to ascertain the truth ! 



227 



CHAPTER IV. 

CHRISTIANITY INTELLIGIBLE, RATIONAL, AND PRACTICAL. 



SECT. I. — THE TEACHINGS OF THE SAVIOUR DISTINGUISHED FOB 
THEIR CLEARNESS AND SIMPLICITY. 

All the doctrine which Christ taught and gave 
Was clear as heaven from whence it came. 

Geobge Herbert. 

is many of the quotations introduced into the preceding chapter, the duty 
of tasking, to the utmost extent, the faculties of the human understand- 
ing in the study and interpretation of Holy Scripture, is strongly urged 
on the attention of Christians; and rules and directions are given for the 
purpose of facilitating inquiry, of guarding against error, and of leading to 
the possession of truth. All this implies, that the Bible is not to be regarded 
as a volume which " he who runneth may read," — which one may hastily 
or passively peruse, and at the same time perfectly understand ; but as a 
collection of sacred books, for the due appreciation of which, and for the 
comprehension of its various and important contents, our intellectual powers 
and our moral affections should alike be devoted. Indeed, apart from the 
value of the facts it records, or the principles it develops, no book requires 
more assiduous and patient study to understand than the Bible; for there is 
none perhaps which as a whole is so hard, difficult, or obscure. 

The documents of which it consists are very ancient, some of them the 
oldest of extant compositions. They were written in languages or in dialects 
which have long ceased to be spoken, and with which the best educated men 
are but imperfectly familiar. They abound in allusions to customs, man- 
ners, opinions, and modes of thought, which are very different from those 
which prevail at the present day in Western Europe and in the New World. 
They have been more or less corrupted in their passage to our times. They 
have been transferred into innumerable versions, all differing one from 
another in a vast variety of particulars. They have been commented oh 
by fathers, by schoolmen, by priests, and by critics; by adherents of tht 
Rornish, Greek, and Protestant churches; by Athanasians and Arians, 
Sabellians and Socinians, Lutherans and Calvinists ; by fanatics, ranters, 
rationalists, and transcendentalists ; and, widely as these disagree in opinion, 



228 DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 

they have lent to each and all of them such real or apparent support as hath 
sufficed to satisfy the consciences and the minds of them all. However 
some Protestants, in their zeal against Popery, may affect to controvert the 
fact, a book from which such a variety of conflicting opinions as those held 
by these sectaries has been professedly taken, must be difficult to under- 
stand. It would be idle to deny it. Even persons who are classed under 
the same category have elicited, from the Bible, dogmas which are far from 
being the same. Neither the philosophers who have found in the Scriptures 
the truths of astronomy and geology, or of moral and mental science ; nor the 
mystics, with their doctrine of a double sense, their correspondences, their 
spiritual influences, their reveries, and their dreams, are at one in their 
respective interpretations of the contents of the Bible. The first chapter 
of Genesis, so simple in phraseology and so sublime in conception, will, if 
we judge of the future from the past, never be so explained as to meet the 
unanimous consent of astronomers, geologists, and theologians. The precise 
boundary between the myths and the histories of the Hebrews has not yet 
been ascertained, and perhaps never will be. The prophecies of the Jewish 
bards, obscure to those who uttered them, have not been rendered altogether 
clear by the light of facts accomplished ; and a portion of doubt and mys- 
tery may still hang over them. No Harmony has harmonized, or probably 
ever will harmonize, the discrepancies existing in the divine and truthful 
Gospels. The proem to John's beautiful narrative of the Saviour, for the 
comprehension of which such vast stores of ancient learning have been in 
countless modes ransacked and displayed, and from which have been de- 
rived opinions the most varied in hue and texture, may never find a solution 
which will be altogether satisfactory to the scholar and the Christian. The 
Epistles of Paul — " in which are some things hard to be understood, which 
they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scrip- 
tures, unto their own destruction " — have been made to speak the strangest, 
the most uncouth and contradictory dogmas ; and the man is yet to come 
who will give such a representation of the apostle's views as will settle 
the controversies which have so long afflicted the church. The contents 
of the Apocalypse, which have so often baffled the prying ingenuity of good 
and wise men, may be fully revealed to the human mind only when " time 
shall be no more." 

Some of these, or similar difficulties and obscurities, may, as we have 
intimated, remain for ever on the pages of the Bible ; but there are others 
which have undoubtedly arisen more from the prepossessions and the pas- 
sions of interpreters than from any imperfection in the book itself; and it 
may reasonably be anticipated that a reduction of their number will be 
gradually effected by the labors of ingenuous and liberal-minded men. 

But, even now, the Bible is not, throughout its various portions, a book 
only of dark and intricate passages leading to no certain conclusion. It 
abounds in narratives, whose beautiful simplicity and tender pathos are 
grateful to the ear of childhood; in pictures of divine heroism and disin- 
terestedness which arrest the eye of youth ; in songs of purity and piety 
which lift to higher realms the common mind of manhood j in words of 






SIMPLICITY OF OUR LORD'S TEACHINGS. 229 

comfort and consolation which impart heavenly strength and holy trust to 
the heart of feebleness and age. 

The Bible is a difficult book; or, rather, it is a collection of books, 
portions of which are very dark and doubtful in their import, if not erro- 
neous in some of their statements. But it contains various revelations of 
the Supreme Wisdom and Infinite Goodness; and all revelations must, to 
those for whom they were intended, be, from their very nature, resplendent 
with light, and impart it to the organ of moral and intellectual vision if in a 
normal or undiseased state. Clouds and darkness may seem to us, in some 
measure, to brood over the communications of God to the antediluvians 
and the patriarchs, — for these were personal or family revelations; or over 
such as were vouchsafed to the Jews through Moses aud the prophets, — for 
these were national ; though many of them speak, in characters the most 
perspicuous, of the pure spirituality, the impartial justice, and universal 
government of the one Jehovah. 

But the gospel of Jesus Christ — including in the term not only the 
teachings of the Saviour, but his life and his character, his labors and his 
sufferings, his death and his resurrection — was a revelation, designed, not 
for particular persons or families, or for a peculiar nation, but for all man- 
kind ; and the impress of universality and legibility are therefore stamped 
on its divine lineaments. By a few simple strokes from the pens of the 
evangelists, Jesus is still seen, as he was some eighteen or nineteen hundred 
years ago, walking on the hills and' the plains, or by the rivers and the 
lakes, of Palestine ; mixing with his countrymen in their lofty temple and 
humbler synagogues, in their cities and villages, in their streets and roads, 
in their houses and in their fishing-boats; familiar with seamen, with publi- 
cans, with the erring and abandoned, with the pious and the gentle-hearted; 
telling them, in no equivocal terms, of the care and providence of their all- 
bountiful Father, of their solemn responsibleness to God for all they think 
and feel and say and do, and of their various duties to themselves and their 
brethren of mankind ; speaking words of comfort and hope to the penitent, 
but of warning and woe to the self-righteous ; imparting health and energy 
and life to the sick, the feeble, the dying, and the dead; and pronouncing 
benedictions on little children, on the humble-minded, on the mourners, on 
the meek, on the hungerers and thirsters after righteousness, on the merciful, 
on the pure in heart, and on those who suffer for the name of Christ. We 
see this good being murdered for his goodness by the proud priests of his 
nation. We see his body taken from the cruel cross, put into a tomb, and 
in a few hours rising again with renewed life. We see him, "from the 
mount called Olivet," ascending to that Being who commissioned him, and 
leaving, as a sacred legacy, the image and remembrances of himself, and the 
spirit of his benign religion, not to the narrow-minded Jews, but to the world 
at large. This great Revealer of the will of God — this best Representative 
and Manifestation of Immortal Goodness — spoke not, indeed, in the Anglo- 
Saxon or in any other modern tongue, but in the now-obsolete Syro-Chaldaic; 
yet its translated tones of love and righteousness sound en the ear, and 
address the heart, of our common humanity. Though he wore a Jewish 

20 



230 SIMPLICITY OF OUR LORD'S TEACHINGS. 

garb, alluded to local and temporary usages, accommodated his words to 
unphilosophical ideas, and spoke in Oriental parables and paradoxes, he 
stands before us, in the pages of the simple evangelists, as the clearest 
expounder of God's messages and the most perfect teacher of eternal truth. 
No corruption of the Greek text, and no false rendering, have obscured, or 
can obscure, the import of the term " Father," which, with so profound yet 
so clear and expressive a meaning, Jesus applied to God in his discourses; 
which he uttered in his prayers and in his thanksgivings ; and which he 
taught his disciples to use in their daily petitions to Heaven. It contains 
within itself a universal revelation, — a revelation intelligible to the capaci- 
ties of the human mind and to the affections of the human heart in all stages 
of development, and growing more significant and luminous as men and 
women advance in the scale of intelligence, virtue, and holiness. 

It would be easy to pursue the same strain of remark, by exhibiting the 
perspicuity and the practicability of other principles which our Lord taught 
and exemplified; and by showing that he avoided the presentation and 
discussion of topics, which, from their inherent obscurity or mysteriousness, 
could not generally be understood, or be brought home to the minds and 
hearts of all men. But the sentiments of eminent Trinitarians on this sub- 
ject, which we are about to introduce, will render any further observatious 
on our part unnecessary. 



He delighted not to discourse of sublime mysteries (although his 
deep wisdom comprehended them all), nor of subtle speculations and 
intricate questions, such as might amuse and perplex rather than 
instruct and profit his auditors, but usually did feed his auditors with 
the most common and useful truths, and that in the most familiar and 
intelligible language. — Dr. Isaac Barrow : Works, vol. i. p. 404. 

Surely, the way to heaven, that Christ hath taught us, is plain and 
easy, if we have but honest hearts : we need not many criticisms, many 
school distinctions, to come to a right understanding of it. Surely, 
Christ came not to ensnare us and entangle us with captious niceties, 
or to puzzle our heads with deep speculations, and lead us through 
hard and craggy notions into the kingdom of heaven. I persuade 
myself that no man shall ever be kept out of heaven for not compre- 
hending mysteries, that were beyond the reach of his shallow under- 
standing, if he had but an honest and good heart, that was ready to 
comply with Christ's commandments. " Say not in thy heart, Who 
shall ascend into heaven ? " that is, with high speculations to bring 
down Christ from thence ; or, " Who shall descend into the abyss 
beneath ? " that is, with deep-searching thoughts to fetch up Christ 
from thence ; but, lo ! " the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and 
in thy heart" .... I speak not here against a free and ingenuous 



SIMPLICITY OF OUR LORD'S TEACHINGS. 231 

inquiry into all truth, according to our several abilities and opportuni- 
ties. I plead not for the captivating and enthralling of our judgments 
to the dictates of men. I do not disparage the natural improvement 
of our understanding faculties by true knowledge, which is so noble 
and gallant a perfection of the mind. But the thing which I aim 
against is the dispiriting of the life and vigor of our religion by dry 
speculations, and making it nothing but a mere dead skeleton of opi- 
nions, — a few dry bones, without any flesh and sinews, tied up 
together ; and the misplacing of all our zeal upon an eager prosecution 
of these, which should be spent to better purpose upon other objects. — 
Dr. Ralph Cudworth : Sermon 1, appended to Intellectual System 
of the Universe, vol. ii. pp. 554, 556. 

The Lord Jesus, in wisdom and tender mercy, established a law of 
grace, and rule of life, pure and perfect, but simple and plain ; laying 
the condition of man's salvation more in the honesty of the believing 
heart than in the strength of wit, and subtlety of a knowing head. 
He comprised the truths which were of necessity to salvation in a 
narrow room ; so that the Christian faith was a matter of great plain- 
ness and simplicity. ... By the occasion of heretics' quarrel and 
errors, the serpent steps in, and will needs be a spirit of zeal in the 
church; and he will so overdo against heretics, that he persuades 
them they must enlarge their creed, and add this clause against one, 
and that against another, and all was but for the perfecting and pre- 
serving of the Christian faith. . . . He had got them, with a religious, 
zealous cruelty to their own and others' souls, to lay all their salvation, 
and the peace of the church, upon some unsearchable mysteries about 
the Trinity, which God either never revealed, or never clearly revealed, 
or never laid so great a stress upon. Yet he persuades them, that 
there was Scripture-proof enough for these ; only the Scripture spoke 
it but in the premises or in darker terms, and they must but gather 
into their creed the consequences, and put it into plainer expressions, 
which heretics might not so easily corrupt, pervert, or evade. — 
Richard Baxter : The Right Method ; in Practical Works, vol. ix. 
pp. 192-3. 

Of the divine Founder of our religion, it is impossible to peruse 
the evangelical histories, without observing how little ke favored the 
vanity of inquisitiveness ; how much more rarely he condescended to 
satisfy curiosity than to relieve distress ; and how much he desired that 
his followers should rather excel in goodness than in knowledge. — 
Dr. Samuel Johnson: Rambler, No. 81. 






232 SIMPLICITY OF OUR CORD'S TEACHINGS. 

Christianity is a religion intended for general use : it appeals to the 
common feelings of our nature, and never clashes with the unbiased 
dictates of our reason. We may therefore rank it among the bene- 
ficial tendencies, as well as the peculiar evidences, of such a religion, 
that the Author of it abstained from all abstruse speculations, &c. — 
Dr. Samuel Parr : Works, vol. v. p. 507. 

While Jesus requires us to believe in the Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit, he has nowhere taught us or required us to believe the learned 
distinctions respecting this doctrine which have been introduced 
since the fourth century. The undeserved benefits which they had 
received from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, were the great subjects to 
which Jesus pointed his followers in the passage above cited [Matt, 
xxviii. 19], and in others ; that they were now able to understand and 
worship God in a more perfect manner, to approach him as their 
Father and Benefactor in spirit and in truth ; that their minds were 
now enlightened by the instructions given them by the Son of God, 
who had been sent into the world to be their Teacher, and that their 
souls were redeemed by his death ; that, in consequence of what Christ 
had already done and would yet do, they might be advanced in moral 
perfection, and made holy, — a work specially ascribed to the aids and 
influence of the Holy Spirit. . . . He did not reveal this doctrine to men 
to furnish them with matter for speculation and dispute, and did not, 
therefore, prescribe any formulas by which the one or the other could 
have been excited. — G. C. Knapp : Christ. TheoL, sect, xxxiii. 2. 

Jesus is not the author of a dogmatic theology, but the author and 
finisher of faith, Heb. xii. 2 ; not the founder of a school, but empha- 
tically the founder of religion and of the church. On this account he 
did not propound dogmas dressed in a scientific garb ; but he taught 
the word of God in a simply human and popular manner, for the most 
part in parables and sentences. — K. It. Hagenbach : Compendium 
of the History of Doctrines, vol. i. § 17. 

There is something most highly interesting and instructive in the 
manner in which the Saviour adapted his communications to the occa- 
sions on which they were to be made, and to the purposes which he 
endeavored to effect by them. A modern preacher would have carried 
the metaphysics of theology all over the villages of Galilee, and would 
have puzzled the woman of Samaria, or the inquiring ruler, with ques- 
tions about the nature of the Godhead, or the distinction between 
moral and natural inability. But Jesus Christ pressed simple duty. 
The two great elementary principles of religion are these, — 



SIMPLICITY OF OUR LORD'S TEACHINGS. 233 

the duty of strong benevolent interest in every fellow-being, and of 
submission and gratitude towards the Supreme. Jesus Christ has 
said, that these constitute the foundation on which all revealed religion 
rests. — Jacob Abbott : The Cowier-stone, pp. 187, 339. 

Christ was the divinest of theologians, because he taught not in 
abstraction, but exemplification; not in dogmas merely, but deeds; 
in the ardor of his heart, as w r ell as the energy of his mind ; in the 
gentleness of his demeanor, and the beneficent industry of his life. 

His ambition was to teach, not so much the new as the true, 

and the true not as a logical formula or dogmatical proposition, but as 
a transparent and comprehensive religious sentiment, enlightening the 
conscience, spiritualizing the heart, elevating the soul, and regenerating 
the entire family of man, as it swept outward with infinite expansive- 

ness to embrace the world He knew that the fundamental 

principles of religion which he taught lay so near to the reason and 
conscience of mankind, that they needed only to have their attention 
directed towards them, in order to secure assent. For this reason, 
Jesus delivered his instructions with such a clearness and simplicity, 
such an energy and power, that they commended themselves imme- 
diately to every ingenuous heart. . . . He realized, in the presence of 
the human race, an ideal of human perfection level to popular com- 
prehension and within the reach of alh In his person, his demeanor, 
and his speech, the world saw the infinite brought down to our stand- 
ard, so realized that we can easily understand it, and feel the majesty 
and beauty of that love to Christ which is nothing but the imitation 
of God brought near to the roused intellect and heart. . . . The doc- 
trines of Christ were at the same time the most practical and profound. 
His precepts were level to the capacities of a child, and yet they con- 
tained principles which the most matured and soaring intellect could 

never outrun By the representation which Jesus gave of the 

doctrine of the one only and Supreme God, and of the nature of 
acceptable worship, very important objects were to be accomplished. 
He exhibited true religion with such clearness and simplicity, that 
those of the humblest capacities, even children, might comprehend 
it. . . . Christ would teach man, that there is no spiritual progress for 
him till he discovers that truth is as much a thing to be felt as a thing 
to be perceived ; and that it is only a very small portion of truth that 
the philosopher's analysis, the logician's syllogisms, theological dogmas, 
and sectarian creeds, can impart to the immortal soul. — E. L. Magoon : 
Republican Christianity, pp. 58, 93, 97-9, 240-1. 

20* 



234 INTELLIGIBILITY OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. 



SECT. II. — THE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY SUITABLE TO ALL 

CAPACITIES. 

My gracious God, how plain 
Are thy directions given ! 
Oh, may I never read in vain, 
But find the path to heaven! 

IflAAO WATT8. 

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike 
clear unto all.; yet those things which are necessary to be known, 
believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and 
opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, 
but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain 
unto a sufficient understanding of them. — Westminster Divines : 
Confession of Faith, chap. i. 7. 

The Christian religion is, as Gregory Nazianzen says, simplex ei 
nuda, nisi prave in artem difficillimam converteretur : it is a plain, an 
easy, a perspicuous truth. — John Donne : Sermons, No. VII. 

S. T. Coleridge, by whom we borrow this extract, beautifully says in 
his note on it (Literary Remains, in Works, vol. v. p. 90), that " a religion 
of ideas, spiritual truths, or truth-powers, — not of notions and conceptions, 
the manufacture of the understanding, — is therefore simplex et nuda, that 
is, immediate ; like the clear blue heaven of Italy, deep and transparent, an 
ocean unfathomable in its depth, and yet ground all the way." Seeing, 
however, that the representation of Christianity as a religion which may 
easily be understood by all will naturally lead to Unitarianism, Coleridge 
exclaims, " Oh, let not the simplex et nuda of Gregory be perverted to the 
Socinian, * plain and easy for the meanest understandings ' ! " 

Because [the] Christian religion was intended and instituted for 
the good of mankind, whether poor or rich, learned or unlearned, 
simple or prudent, wise or weak, it*was fitted with such plain, easy, 
and evident directions, both for things to be known and things to be 
done, in order to the attainment of the end for which it was designed, 
that might be understood by any capacity that had the ordinary and 
common use of reason or human understanding, and by the common 
assistance of the divine grace might be practised by them. The ere- 
denda,~ov things to be known -or believed, as simply necessary to those 
ends, are but few and intelligible, briefly delivered in that summary of 
[the] Christian religion usually called the Apostles' Creed. — SlB 
M vttiiew Hale : A Discourse of Religion, p. 4. 



INTELLIGIBILITY OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. 235 

Considering the wisdom and goodness of Almighty God, I cannot 
possibly believe but that all things necessary to be believed and prac- 
tised by Christians, in order to their eternal salvation, are plainly con- 
tained in the Holy Scriptures. God surely hath not dealt so hardly 
with mankind as to irfake any thing necessary to be believed or 
practised by us which he hath not made sufficiently plain to the 
capacity of the unlearned as well as of the learned. God forbid that 
it should be impossible for any man to be saved and to get to heaven 
without a great deal of learning to direct and carry him thither, when 
the far greatest part of mankind have no learning at all ! It was well 
said by Erasmus, that " it was never well with the Christian world 
since it began to be a matter of so much subtilty and wit for a man 
to be a true Christian." — Archbishop Tillotson : Sermon 44 j in 
Works, vol. iii. p. 219. 

I know not whence it comes to pass, that men love to make plain 
things obscure, and like nothing in religion but riddles and mysteries. 
God, indeed, was pleased to institute a great many ceremonies (and 
many of them of very obscure signification) in the Jewish worship, to 
awe their childish minds into a greater veneration for his divine 
majesty. But, in these last days, God hath sent his own Son into the 
world to make a plain and easy and perfect revelation of his will, to 
publish such a religion as may approve itself to our reason, and capti- 
vate our affections by its natural charms and beauties. And there 
cannot be a greater injury to the Christian religion than to render it 
obscure and unintelligible ; and yet too many there are who despise 
every thing which they understand, and think nothing a sufficient trial 
of their faith but what contradicts the sense and reason of mankind. — 
Dr. William Sherlock : Discourse concerning (lie Knowledge of 
Christ, chap. iv. sect. 2. 

Whence is it, that, amidst all the obscurities that surround us, God 
has placed practical duties in a light .so remarkably clear ? Whence 
is it that doctrines most clearly revealed are, however, so expressed as 
to furnish difficulties, if not substantial and real, yet likely and appa- 
rent ; and that the practical part is so clearly revealed that it is not 
liable to any objections which have any show or color of argument ? 
My brethren, either we must deny the wisdom of the Creator, or we 
must infer this consequence, that what is most necessary to be known, 
what will be most fatal to man to neglect, what we ought most invio- 
lably to preserve, is practical religion. — James Saurin : Sermons, 
voL ii pp. 106-7. 



23 G INTELLIGIBILITY OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. 

The Christian religion, according to my mind, is a very simple 
thing, intelligible to the meanest capacity, and what, if we are at pains 
to join practice to knowledge, we may make ourselves thoroughly 
acquainted with, without turning over many books. It is the distin- 
guishing excellence of this religion, that it is entirely popular, and 
fitted, both in its doctrines and in its evidences, to all conditions and 
capacities of reasonable creatures, — a character which does not belong 
to any other religious or philosophical system that ever appeared in the 
world. I wonder to see so many men, eminent both for their piety 
and for their capacity, laboring to make a mystery of this divine insti- 
tution. If God vouchsafes to reveal himself to mankind, can we 
suppose that he chooses to do so in such a manner as that none but 
the learned and contemplative can understand him ? The generality 
of mankind can never, in any possible circumstances, have leisure or 
capacity for learning, or profound contemplation. If, therefore, we 
make Christianity a mystery, we exclude the greater part of mankind 
from the knowledge of it ; which is directly contrary to the intention 
of its Author, as is plain from his explicit and reiterated declarations. 
In a word, I am perfectly convinced, that an intimate acquaintance 
with the Scripture, particularly the Gospels, is all that is necessary 
to our accomplishment in true Christian knowledge. — Dr. James 
Beattie : Letters, pp. 67-8. 

Every truth contained in divine revelation, or deducible from it, is 
not conveyed with equal perspicuity, nor is in itself of equal impor- 
tance. There are some things so often and so clearly laid down in 
Scripture, that hardly any who profess the belief of revealed religion 
pretend to question them. About these there is no controversy in 
the church. Such are the doctrines of the unity, the spirituality, the 
natural and moral attributes, of God ; the creation, preservation, and 
government of the w r orld by him ; the principal events in the life of 
Jesus Christ, as well as his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension* 
the doctrine of a future judgment, heaven and hell ; together with 
all those moral truths which exhibit the great outlines of our duty tc 
God, our neighbor, and ourselves. In general, it will be found, that 
what is of most importance to us to be acquainted with and believed, 
is oftenest and most clearly inculcated ; and that, as we find there are 
degrees in belief as well as in evidence, it is a very natural and just 
conclusion, that our belief in those points is most rigorously required 

which are notified to us in Scripture with the clearest evidence 

Is . . . the doctrine of revelation abstruse and metaphysical, and 



INTELLIGIBILITY OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. 237 

therefore not to be apprehended by any who have not been accus- 
tomed to the most profound and abstract researches ? By no means. 
The character which Holy Writ gives of its own doctrine is the very 
reverse of this. It is pure and plain, such as " enlighteneth the eyes, 
and maketh wise the simple." . . . The most essential truths are ever 
the most perspicuous. — Dr. George Campbell : Lectures on Sys- 
tematic Theology and Pulpit Eloquence, pp. 16, 17 ; 137, 139. 

It may be reckoned a necessary characteristic of divine revelation, 
that it shall be delivered in a manner the most adapted to what are 
vulgarly called the meanest capacities ; and by this perspicuity, both 
of precept and of doctrine, the whole Bible is remarkably distinguished. 
. . . Obscurities undoubtedly have arisen from the great antiquity of 
the Sacred Writings, from the changes which time makes in language, 
and from some points of ancient history, become dark or doubtful ; 
but these affect only particular passages, and bring no difficulty at all 
upon the general doctrine of revelation, which is the only thing of 
universal and perpetual importance. — Bishop Horsley : Sermons, 
No. VII. p. 76. 

It has been an opinion invariably received in all Protestant coun- 
tries, that whatever is necessary to be believed is intelligible to all 
persons who read the Scriptures with no other view than to investigate 
and embrace the truth. It would be easy to produce a cloud of au- 
thorities to this purpose. — Dr. John Symonds : Observations upon 
the Expediency of Revising the Present English Version of the Epis- 
tles in the New Testament, p. xv. 

While there are many things which God conceals, and thereby 
advances his glory, he has made manifest whatever is essential for man 
to know. Whatever is intimately connected with our duty is most 
plainly taught : whatever is important to our welfare and happiness is 
My revealed. — Robert Hall : Sermon on Prov. xxv. 2 ; in f forks, 
voL hi. p. 328. 

It has been repeatedly and most justly noticed, both as matter of 
admiration and of gratitude, as at once among the strongest evidences 
and the most valuable characteristics of our Christian faith, that, under 
the covenant and dispensation of grace, the things most essentially 
necessary to man's salvation are revealed in the plainest and most 
unequivocal terms, are made (wheresoever the perversity of the human 
will does not oppose itself to the teaching of the Spirit of God) clear 
and intelligible to all men. — J. J. Conybeare : Bampton Lectures, 
page 1. 



238 INTELLIGIBILITY OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. 

The dubious twilight of mystical devotion, and the vague appre- 
hension of unrevealed mysteries, surely cannot but seem greatly at 
variance with the very nature of Christianity, to those who regard it 
as fully and finally disclosed in the written word. . . . That which is 
disclosed is perspicuous and undisguised ; and with this alone it is that 
we are concerned : with what may be hidden from us, we have nothing 
to do. Religion to us exists only so far as it is clearly revealed. The 
acknowledgment of this, upon its proper evidence, is faith : the sus- 
picion that there may be something beyond, with which we are yet 
concerned, is the spirit of mysticism. — Baden Powell : Tradition 
Unveiled, p. 74; apud "Is the Church of England a Scriptural 
Church?" pp. 12, 13. 

The truth is, that a very large part of this profound theology is 
nothing better than a mere jargon of words without meaning, unintel- 
ligible even to " the learned " themselves, and in respect of which the 
people have already this great advantage over such teachers, — that 
the people are aware of their own ignorance of these matters, while 
their teachers pride themselves on understanding what really cannot 
be understood. Sometimes, indeed, when they are pressed with 
objections to their own explanations of Scripture doctrines, divines are 
apt to say that these are mysteries which cannot be understood by 
even the most exalted intellects, and that it is impious to pry into 
them too curiously, or bring them to the test of reason. But then 
the answer is obvious : " If you do not understand these things, why 
do you undertake to explain them ? To every thing, indeed, which 
God has revealed, the deepest reverence and the lowest submission 
are due ; but not so to man's explication of it. If we venture to give 
a further account of what he has said, it should, at least, be a rational 
and intelligible account." . . . Many ingenious theories have, indeed, 
from time to time, been devised and set forth to explain and reconcile 
the statements of Scripture with respect to the Trinity, the atone- 
ment, the divine decrees, and other matters, on which the Bible gives 
us only imperfect information. On such subjects, men have taken up 
the hints which the sacred writers seemed to drop, and sought to fol- 
low them up by conjecturing what the full account of the matter may 
be ; and then they have gone on to settle that this account, which they 
have conjectured, must be the true one, because it gives what they think 
a satisfactory solution of much that is difficult without it ; and so they 
have finally made their own theories a part of the gospel. — ARCH- 
BISHOP Whately : Cautions for the Times, pp. 275-7. 



CHRISTIANITY NOT SPECULATIVE, BUT PRACTICAL. 239 



SECT. in. — CHRISTIANITY NOT A RELIGION OF SPECULATIVE OB 

THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS, BUT OF VITAL FACTS AND 

PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. 



To them, the sounding jargon of the schools 
Seems what it is, — a cap and bell for fools : 
The light they walk by, kindled from above, 
Shows them the shortest way to life and love. 



Cowpeb. 



Instead of those simple and clear ideas which render the truth and 
majesty of the Christian religion sensible, and which satisfy a man's 
reason and move his heart, we meet with nothing in several bodies 
of divinity but metaphysical notions, curious and needless questions, 
distinctions, and obscure terms. In a word, we find there such intri- 
cate theology, that the very apostles themselves, if they came into the 
world again, would not be able to understand it, without the help of a 
particular revelation. This scholastic divinity has done more mischief 
to religion than we are able to express. There is not any thing that 
has more corrupted the purity of the Christian religion, that has more 
obscured matters, multiplied controversies, disturbed the peace of the 
church, or given rise to so many heresies and schisms. — John F. 
Ostervald : Causes of the Present Corruption of Christians ; in 
Watson's Theological Tracts, vol. vi. pp. 297-8. 

The manner of teaching religious truths was [in the first century] 
perfectly simple, and remote from all the rules of the philosophers, 
and all the precepts of human art. . . . Nor did any apostle, or any 
one of their immediate disciples, collect and arrange the principal 
doctrines of Christianity in a scientific or regular system. The cir- 
cumstances of the times did not require this ; and the followers of 
Christ were more solicitous to exhibit the religion they had embraced, 
by their tempers and conduct, than to explain its principles scientifi- 
cally, and arrange them according to the principles of art. There is, 
indeed, extant a brief summary of Christian doctrines, which is called 
the Apostles' Creed ; and which, from the fourth century onward, was 
attributed to Christ's ambassadors themselves. But, at this day, all 
who have any knowledge of antiquity confess unanimously that this 
opinion is a mistake, and has no foundation. — John L. Mosheim i 
Ecclesiastical History, book i. cent. L part 2, chap. 3, § 3, 4. 



240 CHRISTIANITY NOT SPECULATIVE, BUT PRACTICAL. 

The gospel is not a system of theology, nor a syntagma of theo- 
retical propositions and conclusions for the enlargement of speculative 
knowledge, ethical or metaphysical. But it is a history, a series of 
facts and events related or announced. These do, indeed, involve, 
or rather I should say they at the same time are, most important 
doctrinal truths ; but still facts and declarations of facts. — S. T. 
Coleridge : Aids to Reflection ; in Works, vol. i. pp. 234-5. 

We might suppose, from such notions of the Christian faith [the 
notions entertained by modern fanatics], that Christianity was a set of 
speculative disquisitions, where, if a man agreed only with the barren 
and useless results, he was left in liberty to follow the devices of his 
own heart, and to lead what manner of life his fancy or his passions 
might dictate. It is evangelical, according to these notions, to preach 
to men of high and exalted mysteries: it is unevangelical to warn 
men against pride, against anger, against avarice, against fraud, against 
all the innumerable temptations by which we are hurried away from 
our duty to our Creator, and from the great care of salvation. . . . 
But let any man turn to his gospel, and see if there is a single 
instance of our blessed Saviour's life where he does not eagerly seize 
upon every opportunity of inculcating something practical, of bringing 
some passion under subjection, of promoting the happiness of the 
world, by teaching his followers to abstain from something hurtful, 
and to do something useful. . . . But the moment fanatical men hear 
any thing plain and practical introduced into religion, they say this is 
secular, this is worldly, this is moral, this is not of Christ. — Sydney 
Smith : Sermons, vol. i. pp. 98-100. 

It was the consummate excellence of Christianity, that it blended 
in apparently indissoluble union religious and moral perfection. Its 
essential doctrine was, in its pure theory, inseparable from humane, 
virtuous, and charitable disposition. Piety to God, as he was imper- 
sonated in Christ, worked out, as it seemed, by spontaneous energy 
into Christian beneficence. But there has always been a strong pro- 
pensity to disturb this nice balance : the dogmatic part of religion, the 
province of faith, is constantly endeavoring to set itself apart, and to 
maintain a separate existence. . . . The multiplication and subtle refine- 
ment of theologic dogmas, the engrossing interest excited by some 
dominant tenet, especially if they are associated with or embodied in a 
minute and rigorous ceremonial, tend to satisfy and lull the mind into 
complacent acquiescence in its own religious completeness. — H. H 
Milman : History of Christianity, book iv. chap. 5. 



CHRISTIANITY NOT SPECULATIVE, BUT PRACTICAL. 241 

We should rather point out to objectors, that what is revealed is 
practical, and not speculative ; that what the Scriptures are concerned 
-with is not the philosophy of the human mind in itself, nor yet the 
philosophy of the divine nature in itself, but (that which is properly 
religion) the relation and connection of the two beings, — what God 
is to us, what he has done and will do for us, and what we are to be 
and to do in regard to him. — Archbishop Whately: Sermons on 
Virions Subjects, p. 136. 

Christians . . . are called upon to consider, not so much the doc- 
trines or the duties of Christianity, as they are its design, its great 
object, its nature, its tendency, its genius. They have disputed long 
and earnestly on its doctrines ; they have hesitated and doubted, and 
been reluctant to follow the precepts of the New Testament. Let 
them try now to drink in its spirit. Let them examine what the pro- 
fession of religion means, not in regard to one or two doctrines, or 
one or two precepts, but in its inherent spirit, in its true import, in its 
vitality as a thing that is to come into the soul with spiritual power, 
waking the dead to life. Christianity is not a set of opinions, nor a 
system of duties. It is not an orthodox creed, nor a moral law. It is 
life and light. . . . He who does not catch its spirit knows nothing about 
it. Now, this spirit is, more than any thing else, diffusive benevolence. 
... It is doing good to all men. It is glad tidings of great joy for all 
people. Christianity is not designed for one denomination, or one 
color, or one language. It is all-diffusive, like the air which surrounds 
us. — B. B. Edwards, as quoted in Bib. Sacra for October, 1853. 

It is nowhere intimated [in the Scriptures] that Christianity is a 
speculation or a theory, or that any terms of human thought scienti- 
fically employed can organize it. Nothing is said of theologic confes- 
sions or articles, or of scientific efforts in Christian doctrine. The 
texts constantly cited in commendation of "sound doctrine," and 
supposed to be injunctions that maintain the necessity of being 
grounded in theologic articles, are found, when narrowly inspected, 
to be only scholastic misapplications or mistranslations, — tokens of 
tfte universal imposture regarding this matter of doctrine, that, long 
ages ago, had gotten possession of the Christian mind. . . . Thus, we 
have the epithet " sound" which occurs many times in application to 
u words," " speech," " faith," " doctrine," and is understood to com- 
mend the study of a rugged, solid, and sturdy system of speculative 
theology : whereas it only means " wholesome," as it is once trans- 
lated ; that is, health-giving ; in the original, hygeian. So also the 

21 






242 CHRISTIANITY NOT SPECULATIVE, BUT PRACTICAL 

famous all-text of Paul, a text which seems to have worn itself into 
the tongues of many teachers, becomes what it is only in the manner 
above described. It reads in the translation, " Hold fast the form of 
sound words which thou hast heard of me." In the original, " Hold 
last the impression of the health-giving words thou heardest of me," 
&c. ; having no reference at all to any matter of theoretic doctrine, or 
church article, any more than to the Copernican doctrines of astro- 
nomy. The text in Jude, " Contend earnestly for the faith which was 
once delivered to the saints," has suffered a similar hardship. Lite- 
rally and properly translated, the call or exhortation is — " Strive 
(agonize) for the faith, once for all delivered to the saints." " Con- 
tend," a word of churchly pugnacity, is not here. By " the faith," 
too, is meant no scheme of speculative or theologic doctrine, but the 
practical doctrine of a godly life, as grounded in the living faith of 
Christ. The current of the Epistle shows that the errors in view are 
not errors of opinion, but licentious manners and wicked practices. . . . 
Furthermore, it will be seen that the apostles are continually protest- 
ing, in one form or another, against exactly that which most resembles 
a speculative and theoretic activity, — " gnosis " or " knowledge " of 
one ; the " wisdom " of another ; " foolish and unlearned questions 
that do gender strifes ; " " oppositions of science, falsely so called ; " 
" vain janglings ; " " profane and vain babblings ; " the being spoiled 
"through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after 
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ ; " " doting about 
questions and strifes of words." They discourage, in a word, all the 
attempts of inquisitive and would-be wise men to work out a theory 
or philosophem of the gospel, by activity in and about their own 
human centre. Christ, they say, is the doctrine, and the method of 
reason is faith. " Be not carried about with divers and strange doc- 
trines " (i. e. doctrines of mere speculation, that do not minister to 
godly edifying, and are therefore " strange," i. e. foreign, or outside 
of the Christian truth), "for it is a good thing that the heart be 
established with grace ; " implying a conviction, as we see, that it Is 
the heart, and not any platform of articles, that will anchor a soul in 
stability. And for just this reason, I suppose, the same apostle 
declares that the grand test of orthodoxy is in what the heart 
receives, and not in what the head thinks : " Now the end of the 
commandment," that which includes every thing, " is charity, out of a 
pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." — 
Dr. Horace Bushnell : Christ in Theology, pp. 74-7. 






SIMPLICITY OF NEW-TESTAMENT CREEDS. 243 



SECT. IV. — THE CREEDS AND MYSTERIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
SIMPLE AND COMPREHENSD3LE. 

I am more zealous than ever I was for the reduction of the Christian faith to the 
primitive simplicity ; and more confident that the church will never have peace and 
concord, till it be so done, as to the test of men's faith and communion. 

Richard Baxter. 

§ 1. Creeds of the New Testament. 

If we observe the creeds or symbols of belief that are in the New 
Testament, we shall find them very short. " Lord, I believe that 
thou art the Son of God, who was to come into the world : " that was 
Martha's creed. " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God : " that 
was Peter's creed. " We know and believe that thou art Christ, 
the Son of the living God : " that was the creed of all the apos- 
tles. "This is life eternal, that they know thee, the only true God; 
and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ : " that was the creed which 
our blessed Lord himself propounded. And again : "I am the 
resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me, yea, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live ; and he that liveth and believeth in me 
shall not die for ever : " that was the catechism that Christ made for 
Martha, and questioned her upon the article, " Believest thou this ? " 
And this belief was the end of the gospel, and in sufficient perfect 
order to eternal life. For so St. John : " These things are written, 
that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and 
that, believing, ye might have life through his name." — " For this is 
the word of faith which we preach, namely, if you with the mouth 
confess Jesus to be the Lord, and believe in your heart that God 
raised him from the dead, you shall be saved : " that is the Christian's 
creed. " For I have resolved to know nothing amongst you but Jesus 
Christ, and him crucified ; that in us ye may learn not to be wise 
above that which is written, that ye may not be puffed up one for 
another, one against another : " that was St. Paul's creed, and that 
which he recommends to the church of Home, to prevent factions and 
pride and schism. The same course he takes with the Corinthian 
church : " I make known unto you the gospel which I preached unto 
you, which ye have received, in which ye stand, and by which ye are 
saved, if ye hold what I deliver to you," &c. Well, what is that 
gospel by which they should be saved ? It was but this, " that Christ 






244 SIMPLICITY OF NEW-TESTAMENT CREEDS. 

died for our sins, that he was buried, that he rose again the third 
day," &c. So that the sum is this : The Gentiles' creed, or the 
creed in the natural law, is that which St. Paul sets down in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, that " God is, and that God is a rewarder." 
Add to this the Christian creed, that Jesus is the Lord, — that he is 
the Christ . of God, — that he died for our sins, — that he rose again 
from the dead ; and there is no question but he that believes this 
heartily, and confesses it constantly, and lives accordingly, shall be 
saved. We cannot be deceived : it is so plainly, so certainly, affirmed 
in Scripture, that there is no place left for hesitation. . . . Nothing 
more plain than that the believing in Jesus Christ is that fundamental 
article upon which every other proposition is but a superstructure, 
but itself alone with a good life is sufficient to salvation. All other 
things are advantage or disadvantage, according as they happen ; but 
salvation depends not upon them. ... In proportion to this " measure 
of faith," the apostles preached " the doctrine of faith." St. Peter's 
first sermon was, that " Jesus is Christ, that he was crucified, and rose 
again from the dead ; " and they that believed this were presently 
baptized. His second sermon was the same ; and then also he bap- 
tized proselytes into that confession. . . . This was the sum of all that 
St. Paul preached in the synagogues and assemblies of the people : 
this he disputed for, this he proved laboriously, — that Jesus is Christ; 
that he is the Son of God; that he did, that he ought to, suffer, 
and rise again the third day; and this was all that new doctrine 
for which the Athenians and other Greeks wondered at him; ami 
he seemed to them to be a setter-forth of strange gods, " because he 
preached Jesus and the resurrection." This was it into which the 
jailer and all his house were baptized; this is it which was pro- 
pounded to him as the only and sufficient means of salvation : 
" Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, and all thine 
house." This thing was illustrated sometimes with other glorious 
things still promoting the faith and honor of Jesus, as that he ascended 
into heaven, and shall be the Judge of all the world. But this was 
the whole faith : " The things which concerned the kingdom of God, 
and the name of Jesus Christ," was the large circumference of the 
Christian faith. That is, such articles which represent God to be our 
Lord, and Jesus Christ to be his Son, the Saviour of the world ; that 
he died for us, and rose again and was glorified, and reigns over all 
the world, and shall be our Judge, and in the resurrection shall give 
us according to our works ; that in his name only we sliall be saved* 



SIMPLICITY OF NEW-TESTAMENT CREEDS. 245 

that is, 1 y faith and obedience in him, by the mercies of God revealed 
to the world in Jesus Christ, — this is all which the Scripture calls 
necessary ; this is that faith alone into which all the church was bap* 
tized ; which faith, when it was made alive by charity, was and is the 
iaith by which " the just shall live." — Jeremy Taylor : The Rule 
of Conscience, book ii. chap. hi. rule xiv. 65, 66 j in Works, vol. xiii. 
pp. 155-8. 

At the first promulgation of the gospel, all who professed firmly 
to believe that Jesus was the only Redeemer of mankind, and who 
promised to lead a holy life conformable to the religion he taught, 
were received immediately among the disciples of Christ ; nor did a 
more full instruction in the principles of Christianity precede their 
baptism, but followed after it. — John L. Mosheim : Ecclesiastical 
History, book i. cent. i. part 2, chap. 3, § 5. 

To me nothing is more evident than that the essence of Chris- 
tianity, abstractly considered, consists in the system of doctrines and 
duties revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ ; and that the essence of 
the Christian character consists in the belief of the one, and the 
obedience of the other. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," says 
the apostle, " and thou shalt be saved." Again, speaking of Christ, 
he says, " Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salva- 
tion to all them that obey him." The terms rendered sometimes 
" believing," and sometimes " obeying," are commonly of so extensive 
signification as to include both senses, and are therefore used inter- 
changeably. — Dr. Geo. Campbell: Ecclesiastical History, Lect. 4. 

No one acquainted with Scripture will hesitate to pronounce, that 
the belief required in the records of our religion is the belief 
that " Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world ; " " the 
Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." — " That 
they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom 
thou hast sent," is pronounced to be " eternal life," even in that 
solemn and affecting address which our Redeemer poured forth to 
the Father, just before the commencement of his sufferings. What- 
soever controversy may have been stirred about the meaning of these 
passages, it will, I apprehend, be an extremely difficult task ... to 
prove that the fault lies in the ambiguity of the records themselves. — 
Bishop Maltby : Illustrations of the Truth of the Christian Refo 
gion, pp. 304-5. 

It was a creed, and not a history, which, in all the accounts we 
have in the Acts of the Apostles and elsewhere, formed the subject 

21* 



246 SIMPLICITY OF NEW-TESTAMENT CREEDS. 

of oral teaching. . . . But, resting as the creed did upon the history, 
containing no doubt in its primitive form a very few simple articles, 
would it not necessarily awaken curiosity as to the historic facts ? — 
II. H. Milman : History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 124. 

The existence and first development of the Christian church rests 
on an historical foundation, — on the acknowledgment of the fact 
that Jesus Was the Messiah, — not on a certain system of ideas. 
Christ did not as a teacher propound a certain number of articles of 
faith ; but, while exhibiting himself as the Redeemer and Sovereign in 
the kingdom of God, he founded his church on the facts of his life 
and sufferings, and of his triumph over death by the resurrection. 
Thus the first development of the church proceeded not from a certain 
system of ideas set forth in a creed, but only from the acknowledg- 
ment of one fact which included in itself all the rest that formed the 
essence of Christianity, — the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Mes- 
siah, in which were involved the facts by which he was accredited as 
such by God, and demonstrated to mankind ; namely, his resurrection, 
glorification, and continual agency on earth for the establishment of 
his kingdom in divine power. — Augustus Neander : History of 
the Planting of the Christian Church, vol. i. p. 20, and vol. ii. p. 64, 
Bonn's edition. 

Without any elaborate written confessions, believers professed their 
perfect faith in Christ as the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Saviour 
of men; in the Holy Scriptures as the word of God; in the Holy 
Spirit as the sanctifier and the spirit of truth ; and in the Scripture 
doctrines of holiness in this life, and of a future state. All this, and 
much more, was comprehended in faith in Christ. To believe in 
Christ was to believe in the whole system of Christianity. Nothing 
more than an explicit profession of faith in Christ appears to have 
been necessary to admission to the church. Acts viii. 37 ; xvi. 31-34. 
The elaborate confessions of faith made use of by most denominations 
in modern times are a deviation from Christian and apostolic usage. 
They are meant to be improvements of the institutions of Christ ; but 
they are really corruptions of them. Christ made no such standards, 
and required no subscriptions to them. Such standards would have 
materially impeded the progress of religion in the apostolic age, and 
they have always been injurious. Had an elaborate and extended 
confession of Christian faith been necessary, such an instrument ought 
to have been given to the primitive church by its divine Founder. — 
Leicester A. Sawyer : Organic Christianity, pp. 28-9. 



COMPREIIENSIBILITY OF NEW-TESTAMENT MYSTERIES. 247 



§ 2. Mysteries of the New Testament. 

The Greek word iiuarrjpiov occurs frequently in the New Testament, 
and is uniformly rendered, in the English translation, " mystery." We. 
all know that by the most current use of the English word " mystery M 
is denoted some doctrine to human reason incomprehensible ; in other 
words, such a doctrine as exhibits difficulties, and even apparent con- 
tradictions, which we cannot solve or explain. Another use of the 
word, which is often to be met with in ecclesiastic writers of former 
ages, and in foreign writers of the present age, is to signify some 
religious ceremony or rite, especially those now denominated sacra- 
ments. When we come to examine the Scriptures critically, and 
make them serve for their own interpreters, which is the surest way 
of attaining the true knowledge of them, we shall find, if I mistake 
not, that both these senses are unsupported by the usage of the 
inspired penmen. The leading sense of the word is arcanum, a 
6ecret ; any tlung not disclosed, not published to the world, though 
perhaps communicated to a select number. This is totally different 
from the current sense of the English word "mystery," something 
incomprehensible. In the former acceptation, a thing was no longer 
a mystery than whilst it remained unrevealed ; in the latter, a thing is 
equally a mystery after the revelation as before. To the former we 
apply, properly, the epithet " unknown ; " to the latter we may, in a 
great measure, apply the term " unknowable." Thus the proposition 
that God would call the Gentiles, and receive them into his church, 
was as intelligible or comprehensible as that he once had called the 
descendants of the patriarchs, or as any plain proposition or historical 
fact Yet, whilst undiscovered, it remained, in the scriptural idiom, 
a " mystery," having been hidden from ages and generations ; but, 
after it had pleased God to reveal this his gracious purpose to the 
apostles by his Spirit, it was a mystery no longer. It is proper to 
take notice of one passage, wherein the word fivaryptov, it may be 
plausibly urged, must have the same sense with that which present 
use gives to the English word "mystery," and denote something, 
which, though revealed, is inexplicable, and to human faculties unin- 
telligible. The words are, " Without controversy, great is the mystery 
of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh," &c, 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
Admit that some of the great articles enumerated may be justly called 
mysteries in the ecclesiastical and present, acceptation of the term, it 
does not follow that this is the sense of ihe term here. The purport 



248 COMPREIIENSIBILITY OF NEW-TESTAMENT MYSTERIES. 

of the sentence plainly is, " Great unquestionably is the divine secret, of 
which our religion brings the discovery: God was manifest in the 
flesh," &c. — Abridged from Db. George Campbell: The Four 
Gospels, Diss. ix. part i. §§ 1, 2, 3, 13. 

In support of his explanation of the term " mystery," this able writer 
refers, among other passages, to 1 Cor. iv. 1, Matt. xiii. 11, and to those in 
which occur the phrases, "mystery of the gospel," "mystery of the faith," 
"mystery of God," and " mystery of Christ." 

As the expression has, unfortunately, I think, been admitted into 
our communion service, I am bounden to show you the origin of it. 
The word " mystery," then, is sometimes used for particular doctrines 
of the gospel, as was the case also with sacramentum : sometimes it 
is used for the whole collective religion of Christ. In both of these 
uses, it contains, not any proposition concerning the essence of the 
Deity, but those moral dispensations which are facts, and which, as 
such, can be fully comprehended by reason; but which are called 
mysteries, because they were unknown before the coming of Christ. 
That Christ was sent by the Father is a fact ; that he taught the most 
holy doctrine is a fact ; that he worked miracles is a fact ; that he died 
upon the cross is a fact ; that he rose from the grave is a fact ; that 
his religion would be preached to the Gentiles is a fact ; and all these 
facts are so far mysterious as that they could not be known to us 
without a revelation from God. — Dr. Samuel Parr : Sermons on 
the Sacrament ; in Works, vol. vi. pp. 147-8. 

The Greek fivorqpiov is commonly rendered " mystery." It answers 
to the Hebrew ^frofa* an( ^ signifies in general any thing concealed, 
hidden, unknown. In the New Testament, it generally signifies 
doctrines which are concealed from men, either because they were 
never before published (in which sense every unknown doctrine is 
mysterious), or because they surpass human comprehension. Some 
doctrines are said to be mysterious for both of these reasons ; but more 
frequently doctrines which are simply unknown are called by this 
name. Mvorqpiov signifies, therefore, in its biblical use, — (1) Chris- 
tianity in its whole extent, because it was unknown before its publi- 
cation; e.g. 1 Tim. iii. 9. (2) Particular truths of the Christian 
revelation; e.g. 1 Cor. iv. 1; xv. 51, and especially in the writings 
of Paul. (3) The doctrine that the divine grace in Christ extends, 
without distinction, to Gentiles as well as Jews, because this doctrine 
vjB,s so new to the Jews, and so foreign to their feelings ; e. g*. Eph« 



COMPREHENSIBILITY OF NEW-TESTAMENT MYSTERIES. 249 

i. 9 ; iii. 3. Col. v. 6, seq., &c. The word " mystery n is now com- 
monly used in theology in a more limited sense. Here it signifies a 
doctrine revealed in the Holy Scriptures, the mode of which is inscru- 
table to the human understanding. ... Of this nature are the doctrines 
respecting Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; the union of two natures in 
Christ ; the atonement, &c. — G. C. Knapp : Christian Theology, 
sect. vi. 1, 2. 

But this excellent writer does not point out any passage of the Bible 
in which the word " mystery" is applied to the doctrine of three persons 
in one God, the incarnation of God the Son, or any other incomprehensible 
tenet in Trinitarian theology. 

The apostle [Paul] naturally makes allusion to these [heathen 
rites], by the use of the word " mystery," to denote those designs of 
God's providence, and those doctrinal truths, which had been kept 
concealed from mankind " till the fulness of time " was come, " but 
were now made manifest " to believers. . . . Our ordinary use of the 
word "mystery" conveys the notion of something that we cannot 
understand at all, and which it is fruitless to inquire into. . . . Such 
an expression as, " This is a mystery to us," conveys to us the idea 
that it is something we do not and cannot understand : to Paul it 
would convey the idea, that it is something which "now is made 
manifest," and which we are therefore called upon to contemplate 
and study ; even as his office was " to make known the mystery of the 
gospel." Not that he meant to imply that we are able fully to under- 
stand the divine dispensations ; but it is not in reference to this their 
inscrutable character that he calls them mysteries, but the reverse : 
they are reckoned by him mysteries, not so far forth as they are hid- 
den and unintelligible, but so far forth as they are revealed and 
explained. — Archbishop Whately : Essays on Difficulties in 
Paul's Writings, pp. 288-9. 

The word " mystery " (jivaryptov) means literally something into 
which one must be initiated before it is fully known (from fiveu, to 
initiate, to instruct) ; and then any thing which is concealed or hidden. 
We commonly use the word to denote that which is above our com- 
prehension, or unintelligible ; but this is never the meaning of the 
word in the New Testament. It means there some doctrine or fact 
which has been concealed, or which has not before been fully re- 
vealed, or which has been set forth only by figures and symbols. 
When the doctrine is made known, it may be as clear and plain aa 
any other. — Dr. Albert Barnes, in his note on Eph. i. 9. 






250 BELIEF IN TRINITARIAN MYSTERIES 



SECT. V. — BELIEF IN UNINTELLIGIBLE MYSTERIES AND METAPHYSICAL 
CREEDS NOT ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION. 

Thank God! man is not to be judged by man. — P. J. Bailey. 

If it were considered concerning Athanasius's Creed, how many 
people understand it not, how contrary to natural reason it seems, how 
little the Scripture says of those curiosities of explication, and how 
tradition was not clear on his side for the article itself, ... it had not 
been amiss if the final judgment had been left to Jesus Christ . . . 
Indeed, to me it seems very hard to put uncharitableness into the 
creed, and so to make it become as an article of faith. — Jeremy 
Taylor : Liberty of Prophesying, sect. ii. 36 ; in Works, vol vii. 
pp. 491-3. 

The belief of the Trinity is a practical belief. Far be it from us 
to think that every plain Christian shall be damned who knoweth not 
what a person in the Trinity is, as eternally inexistent, when all the 
divines and school wits as good as confess, after tedious disputes with 
unintelligible words, that they know not. — Kichard Baxter : 
Catechizing of Families ; in Practical Works, vol. xix. pp. 63-4. 

We believe it to be taught in Scripture, that Jesus is the Son of 
God, in respect to his divine nature and eternal filiation ; but we dare 
not pronounce belief in this doctrine necessary to eternal salvation. 
The doctrine is, indeed, involved in so much obscurity and subtlety, 
that, after having harassed themselves in attempting to understand it, 
the most learned and talented men have been forced to acknowledge 
their own ignorance. Now, it is incredible that the Almighty should 
have caused our everlasting happiness to depend on the reception of a 
dogma so obscure and perplexed, that in all probability no man can 
form a distinct conception of it. Many other dogmas are involved in 
the same obscurity, such as that of the most Holy Trinity, namely, 
that there is in one numerical essence three distinct persons; one 
begetting, another begotten, and a third proceeding ; — and that of 
the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, though only one, consists 
of two complete natures, the divine and the human. It cannot, there- 
fore, be urged that the belief of such doctrines is essential to salva- 
tion. — Abridged from Philip Limborch : Theologia Christiana f 
lib. v. cap. 9, §§ 9, 10. 



NOT ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION. 251 

The vulgar sort think that they know Christ enough cut of their 
creeds and catechisms, and confessions of faith ; and if they have but 
a little acquainted themselves with these, and like parrots conned the 
words of them, they doubt not but they are sufficiently instructed in 
all the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Many of the more learned, 
if they can but wrangle and dispute about Christ [about his Divinity, 
humanity, union of both together, and what not], imagine themselves 
to be grown great proficients in the school of Christ. . . . Our Saviour 
prescribes his disciples another method to come to the right know- 
ledge of divine truths, by doing of God's will. " He that will do my 
Father's will," saith he, " shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of 
God." — Dr. Ralph Cudworth : Sermon 1, appended to Intellectual 
System of the Universe, voL ii. pp. 549-50. 

Everlasting salvation, it is hoped, depends not on a belief in the 
doctrine of a third person in the Godhead. ... I do not think that 
God will condemn him who errs in this matter, particularly if he is 
an honest and conscientious inquirer. — J. D. MlCHAELlS : Anmer- 
kungen on John xvi. 13-15. 

I insist upon no explication [of the doctrine of the Trinity] at all ; 
iiO, not even on the best I ever saw ; I mean that which is given us 
in the creed commonly ascribed to Athanasius. I am far from saying, 
He who does not assent to this "shall without doubt perish ever- 
lastingly." ... I dare not insist upon any one's using the word 
" Trinity " or " Person." I use them myself without any scruple, 
because I know of none better; but, if any man has any scruple 
concerning them, who shall constrain him to use them ? I cannot ; 
much less would I burn a man alive, and that with moist, green wood, 
for saying, " Though I believe the Father is God, the Son is God, 
and the Holy Ghost is God, yet I scruple using the words Trinity and 
Persons, because I do not find those terms in the Bible." These 
are the words which merciful John Calvin cites as wrote by Servetus 
in a letter to himself. — John Wesley : Sermon 60 ; in Works, 
vol. ii. p. 21. 

Bishop Burnet has said all that can well be said upon them [the 
damnatory sentences in the Athanasian Creed], but, in my opinion, to 
very little purpose. Honestly, therefore, did Archbishop Tillotson 
declare to him, " The account given of Athanasius's Creed seems to 
me in nowise satisfactory. I wish we were well rid of it." — And so 
do I too, for the credit of our common Christianity. It has been a 
millstone about the neck of many thousands of worthy men. To be 



252 BELIEF IN TRINITARIAN MYSTERIES 

sure, declarations like these ascended out of the bottomless pit, to 
disgrace the subscribing clergy, to render ridiculous the doctrines of 
the gospel, to impel the world into infidelity, and to damn the souls 
of those who, for the sake of filthy lucre, set their hands to what they 
do not honestly believe. The truth is, though I do believe the doc- 
trine of the Trinity as revealed in the Scriptures, yet I am not 
prepared, openly and explicitly, to send to the Devil, under my 
solemn subscription, every one who cannot embrace the Athanasian 
illustration of it. In this thing the Lord pardon his servant for 
subscribing in time past. Assuredly I will do so no more. — David 
Simpson : Plea for Religion, p. 404, Appendix ii. 

This noble-minded man was prevented by death from putting into effect 
his resolution of quitting the Established Church of England. 

[1] What are the catechisms of the Romish church, of the 
English church, of the Scotch church, and of all other churches, but 
a set of propositions which men of different natural capacities, educa- 
tions, prejudices, have fabricated (sometimes on the anvil of sincerity, 
oftener on that of ignorance, interest, or hypocrisy) from the divine 
materials furnished by the Bible ? And can any man of an enlarged 
charity believe, that his salvation will ultimately depend on a concur- 
rence in opinion with any of these niceties, which the several sects of 
Christians have assumed as essentially necessary for a Christian man's 
belief? Oh, no! Christianity is not a speculative business. One 
good act performed from a principle of obedience to the declared will 
of God will be of more service to every individual than all the specu- 
lative theology of St. Augustine [2] That man is not to be 

esteemed an Atheist who acknowledges the existence of a God, the 
Creator of the universe, though he cannot assent to all the truths of 
iiatural religion, which other men may undertake to deduce from that 
principle ; nor is he to be esteemed a Deist who acknowledges that 
Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world, 
though he cannot assent to all the truths of revealed religion, which 
other men may think themselves warranted as deducing from thence. 
Still, you will probably rejoin, there must be many truths in the 
Christian religion concerning which no one ought to hesitate, inas- 
much as without a belief in them he cannot be reputed a Christian. 
Reputed ! By whom ? By Jesus Christ, his Lord and his God j or 
by you ? Rash expositors of points of doubtful disputation ; intole- 
rant fabricators of metaphysical creeds, and incongruous systems of 



NOT ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION. 253 

theology ! Do you undertake to measure the extent of any man's 
understanding except your own ; to estimate the strength and origin 
of his habits of thinking ; to appreciate his merit or dement in the 
use of the talent which God has given him ; so as unerringly to pro- 
nounce that the belief of this or that doctrine is necessary to his 
salvation ? ... If different men, in carefully and conscientiously 
examining the Scriptures, should arrive at different conclusions, even 
on points of the last importance, we trust that God, who alone knows 
what every man is capable of, will be merciful to him that is in error. 
We trust that he will pardon the Unitarian, if he be in an error, 
because he has Mien into it from the dread of becoming an idolater, 
— of giving that glory to another which he conceives to be due to 
God alone. If the worshipper of Jesus Christ be in an error, we 
trust that God will pardon his mistake, because he has fallen into it 
from a dread of disobeying what he conceives to be revealed concern- 
ing the nature of the Son, or commanded concerning the honor to be 
given him. Both are actuated by the same principle, — the fear of 
God ; and, though that principle impels them into different roads, it 
is our hope and belief, that, if they add to their faith charity, they 
will meet in heaven. — Bishop Watson. 

The passage marked [1] is taken from the Anecdotes of Watson's Life, 
p. 405; that numbered [2], from the Preface to his Collection of Theological 
Tracts, vol. i. pp. xv. — xviii. 

That a belief in these formulas [those which have been retained 
since the Xicene Council in the system of the church, established and 
enforced] should be declared essential to salvation, as is done in the 
Athanasian Creed, cannot but be disapproved. This creed, however, 
was not composed by Athanasius ; nor was it even ascribed to him 
before the seventh century, though it was probably composed in the 
fifth. The principle that any one who holds different views respecting 
the Trinity salvus esse non poterit [cannot be saved] . . . would lead 
us to exclude from salvation the great majority even of those Chris- 
tians who receive the doctrine and language of the Council of Nice ; 
for common Christians, after all the efforts of their teachers, will not 
unfrequently conceive of three Gods in the three persons of the God- 
head, and thus entertain an opinion which the creed condemns. But 
if the many pious believers in common life who entertain this theo- 
retical error may yet be saved, then others who believe in Christ from 
the heart and obey his precepts, who have a personal experience of th 2 

22 



254 BELIEF IN TRINITARIAN MYSTERIES 

practical effects of this doctrine, may also be saved, though they may 
adopt other particular theories and formulas respecting the Trinity, 
different from that commonly received. These particular formulas and 
theories, however much they may be regarded and insisted upon, have 
nothing to do with salvation. — G. C. Knapp : Christian Theology 9 
sect, xxxiii. 2. 

We know that different persons have deduced different and even 
opposite doctrines from the words of Scripture, and consequently 
there must be many errors among Christians ; but, since the gospel 
nowhere informs us what degree of error will exclude from eternal 
happiness, I am ready to acknowledge, that, in my judgment, notwith- 
standing the authority of former times, our church would have acted 
more wisely and more consistently with its general principles of mild- 
ness and toleration, if it had not adopted the damnatory clauses of 
the Athanasian Creed. Though I firmly believe that the doctrines 
themselves of this creed are all founded in Scripture, I cannot but 
conceive it to be both unnecessary and presumptuous to say, that, 
" except every one do keep them whole and undefiled, without doubt 
he shall perish everlastingly." — Bishop Tomline : Elements of 
Christian Theology, vol. ii. p. 222. 

I would willingly admit, that salvation may be obtained without a 
knowledge of the Athanasian Creed. Thousands and millions of 
Christians have gone to their graves, who have either never heard 
of it, or not understood it ; and I would add, that let a man believe 
the Scriptures, let him profess his faith in Christ in the plain and 
simple language of the New Testament, and he may pass through life 
as piously and happily, he may go to his grave with as quiet a con- 
science, and, more than this, he may rise again as freely pardoned and 
forgiven, as if he had dived into the depths of controversy, and traced 
the nature of the Deity through the highest walks of metaphysics. 
But, &c. — Dr. Edw. Burton : Theological Works, vol. i. p. 283. 

I do not believe the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian Creed, 
under any qualification given of them, except such as substitute for 
them propositions of a wholly different character. Those clauses 
proceed on a false notion, which I have elsewhere noticed, that the 
importance of all opinions touching God's nature is to be measured 
by his greatness; and that, therefore, erroneous notions about the 
Trinity are worse than erroneous notions about church government, 
or pious frauds, or any other disputed point on which there is a right 
and a wrong, a true and a false, and on which the wrong and the false 



NOT ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION. 255 

truty indeed be highly sinful ; but it does not follow that they must 
be j and their sinfulness does not depend upon their wrongness and 
falsehood, but on other circumstances in the particular mind of the 
person holding them. — Dr. Thomas Arnold : Letter 185 ; in Life 
and Correspondence, pp. 321-2. 

By such a procedure [as that of persons stigmatizing as heterodox 
all appeal to private judgment, except that of their own judgment, 
and that of such as agree with them], uninspired and fallible men 
arrogate to themselves an authority which belongs only to God, and 
his inspired messengers j and the creeds, articles, catechisms, and other 
formularies of a church, or the expositions, deductions, and assertions 
of an individual theologian, are, practically, put in the place of the 
Holy Scriptures. ... To decide who are and who are not partakers of 
the benefits of the Christian covenant, and to prescribe to one's fellow- 
mortals, as the terms of salvation, the implicit adoption of our own 
interpretations, is a most fearful presumption in men not producing 
miraculous proofs of an immediate divine mission. — Archbishop 
Whately : Essays on Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 238-9. 

How was the noble heart of Dante crushed by the thought, that 
his dear master, and all the men whom he reverenced in the old 
world, were outcasts for not believing in the Trinity ! That thought 
evidently shook his faith in the Trinity. • And it would shake mine, 
because it would lead me to suppose that truth only became true 
when Christ appeared, instead of being revealed by him for all ages 
past and to come ; so that whoever walked in the light then, whoever 
walks in it now, seeking glory and immortality, desirous to be true, 
has glimpses of it, and will have the fruition of it, which is life eter- 
nal — Frederick D. Maurice : JVote on the Athanasian Creed ; in 
Tlieological Essays, p. 369. 

We are cheered with a belief, that, in the darkest ages, hundreds 
and thousands of unlettered men felt an influence which they could 
not explain, — the influence of love attracting to itself the particles of 
truth that lay scattered along the symbols and scholastic forms of the 
church. The great mass of believers have never embraced the meta- 
physical refinements of creeds, useful as these refinements are; but 
have singled out, and fastened upon, and held firm, those cardinal 
truths which the Bible has lifted up and turned over in so many dif- 
ferent lights as to make them the more conspicuous by their very 
alternations of figure and hue. The true history of doctrine is to be 
studied, not in the technics, but in the spirit, of the church. In un- 






256 BELIEF IN MYSTERIES NOT ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION. 



numbered cases, the real faith of Christians has been purer than their 
written statements of it. Men, women, and children have often 
decided aright when doctors have disagreed, and doctors themselves 
have often felt aright when they reasoned amiss. . . . Many who now 
dispute for an erroneous creed have, we trust, a richer belief imbedded 
in their inmost love. — Dr. Edwards A. Park : Theology of the 
Intellect, fyc. ; in Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. vii. p. 560. 



If, as admitted in this chapter, the authoritative Teacher of his own 
religion avoided all metaphysical speculations on the essence of the Deity, 
and his instructions are so marked for their simplicity and universality as 
to be easily comprehended by the honest and inquiring, whether illiterate 
or learned ; if the essential truths of revelation are so clearly impressed 
on the pages of the Bible, and especially of the New Testament, as to be 
perfectly intelligible to all capacities, and to be recognized in some measure 
by all members of the Christian church ; if Christianity is not a religion of 
speculative or theoretical propositions, but of vital facts and practical 
principles; if there are no mysteries in the gospel records, except those 
which were once hidden from the human mind, but are now revealed and 
understood; if the faith prescribed by the great Master, avowed by the 
apostles, and enjoined by them on all converts, was of the briefest and sim- 
plest nature, implying merely an acknowledgment of the divine mission of 
Jesus, and a profession of obedience to his holy laws ; and if a belief in the 
dogma of a Triune God, or in the metaphysical subtleties of creeds, articles, 
and confessions, is not essential to salvation, — then will it follow that 
Christianity is not Trinitarianism ; unless, indeed, a Trinity in Unity, and a 
Unity in Trinity, were a doctrine so plain as to be comprehensible by the 
common understanding, and so practical as to be capable of ameliorating 
the heart and the life; forming, moreover, one of the great subjects of the 
instructions of Jesus, and the preaching of the apostles. Then will it also 
follow, that the mysterious dogmas of so-called Orthodoxy, even though 
they could be elaborately inferred from a combination of passages drawn 
out of their connection, are not of that importance which they are repre- 
sented to be in the established or popular formularies of faith. 

The qualifications here made, however, will be found unnecessary; for 
in the following chapter, and in other portions of this work, we shall, with 
the aid of eminent writers belonging to orthodox churches, prove that the 
dogma of a Triune God is, in one form or another, either obscure, unintelli- 
gible, absurd, or self-contradictory ; and that it derives no support either 
from the express declarations of Jesus Christ, of prophets, evangelists, and 
apostles, or from any rational mode of inference employed in the collecting 
arranging, and comparing of texts. 



257 



CHAPTER V. 

TRINITARIANISM EITHER UNINTELLIGIBLE OR SELF- 
CONTRADICTORY. 



SECT. L — VARIOUS AND OPPOSITE STATEMENTS OR DEFINITIONS OF 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 

When men have several faiths, to find the true, 
We only can the aid of reason use. 

Sib TV. Davenant 

In pages 2 and 3, we gave a brief abstract of the principal theories of a 
Triune God which have been set forth in the writings of eminent theolo- 
gians. In the present section, it will be our aim to exhibit these theories in 
the words of their respective authors, or of those to whom they have been 
attributed. 

We shall, in the first place, present the formulas of two of the most 
ancient ecclesiastic symbols, — the Apostolical, so called, and the Nicene; 
each of these containing a profession of faith in Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost; namely, in a kind of Trinity, but not in a Triune God; — the first 
and oldest of these creeds being, in its statement of the Deity, Unitarian; 
and the second, Dualistic. We shall then quote a variety of propositions 
emanating from very different sources, but all acknowledging belief in the 
dogma of a Trinity in Unity ; and shall endeavor to show that these propo- 
sitions are either so obscure and unintelligible as to express no ideas, and 
afford no ground whatever for belief, or that they contain such affirmations 
and such principles of reasoning as lead to conclusions very different from 
that which they are intended to recommend; that Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, so far from their subsisting as three co-equal and co-eternal persons 
in one God, according to the usual representation of the Trinitarian doctrine, 
are, by virtue of the statements, the admissions, or the reasonings of Trini- 
tarians themselves, either — I. Only one divine person or agent with three 
names; II. Three finite intelligences, — each, considered in himself, imper 
feet, but all constituting one God; III. Three unequal beings, of whom 
only one is the absolutely True, the Self-existent, the Supreme God; or, 
IV. Three co-equal, co-eternal, and infinite Gods. 

22* 






258 STATEMENTS OF THE TRINITY. 

It is painful to argue on this subject; but, if men will depart from the 
sublime simplicity of Scripture and from the teachings of enlightened rea- 
son, it seems almost impossible to point out the conclusions fairly deducible 
from their phraseology, without using such expressions as, though meant to 
apply only to the figments of the human brain, jar on those sentiments of 
profound reverence which every devout mind must feel in speaking of the 
Most High. 

All Trinitarians say, reluctantly or unreluctantly, that " there are three 
persons in one God." In using this word " person," they, of course, annex, 
or they do not annex, to it certain ideas. They use the word either in its 
ordinary acceptation, or in some other sense, or in no sense at all. Some 
Trinitarians have no hesitation in defining the conceptions which they attach 
to it; while others content themselves with the remark, that it expresses a 
distinction in the Godhead which is so mysterious as to be incapable of 
being defined or explained. In the latter case, the proposition, of which the 
word " person" forms the chief element, is, as a matter of course, unintelli- 
gible. It means nothing. It consists of letters or sounds which have no 
signification. It addresses no faculty of the mind, touches no affection of 
the heart, calls into action no aspiration of the soul, — no principle of faith 
or hope or love. 

In the other cases, in which " person" is defined, the proposition under 
notice expresses a sentiment which can be pronounced congruous or incon- 
gruous with itsolf, true or false, according to the ideas which it is made to 
represent, and to its agreement or disagreement with the principles of rea- 
son and the statements of revelation. 

I. If, in the proposition, " There are three persons in one God," by the 
word 4< person" ib meant a character, phase, or relation of the Deity; a 
peculiar mode in which God discloses himself to his intelligent offspring; 
a manifestation of some one of his characteristics or attributes, — then will 
the doctrine, that the three persons, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, are 
one God, be perfectly intelligible, and consistent with itself; for the one 
Supreme Being unquestionably acts towards man in the three capacities of 
a creating, a redeeming, and a sanctifying God. But this theory of a Tri 
nity in Unity, which has been suggested in a variety of forms, though all 
essentially alike, is liable to strong objections. It departs from the ordinary 
sense of the word " person," without assigning a satisfactory reason. It 
restricts the relations of the Deity to three, when, in point of fact, they 
exceed that number: for God is not only our Creator,- but our Governor; 
not only our Redeemer, but our Preserver; not only our Sanctifier, but our 
Consoler and our Judge ; so that there would be at least as much propriety 
in saying that there are six or more persons, as in maintaining that there are 
only three, in the Godhead. Moreover, the terms " Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost," the original subject of the proposition (not the substituted words 
" Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier"), when spoken of as mere characters 
or relations of the Deity, and not^as intelligent agents, convey no ideas 
which can fce apprehended by the human mind. The Father, the Son, or 



STATEMENTS OP THE TRINITY. 259 

the Spirit of a relation or a mode; their co-equality and co-essentiality; the 
self-existence or the supremacy of the first relation, the eternal generation 
of the second and procession of the third relation, — each of these being 
God, and yet constituting altogether only one God; the one mode or mani- 
festation sending the others, or appointing them to certain trusts, and all 
having communications one with another in the great acts of creation, pro- 
vidence, and redemption, — these or similar representations of God, which 
may justly be inferred from the language used by believers in a nominal 
Trinity, — if consistent with their main principle, and not meaning to speak 
of three real, conscious agents or beings, — are so repugnant to the dictates 
of common sense and of universal language as to justify any reasonable 
man in refusing to believe a doctrine which involves such absurdities. 

II. and III. If, on the contrary, it is affirmed that the word u person " 
should be understood to denote an intelligent agent, but that, though three 
intelligent agents exist in the Godhead, and each of these is God, they are 
not three Gods, but only one God, — it will necessarily follow, — unless, 
in spite of the denial, we understand the proposition to convey the incom- 
patible notion that three infinite Gods are only one infinite God, — that the 
word " God" is used here in two very different senses; and that the propo 
sition means either, 1. That each of the three persons or agents is not by 
himself an infinite being, but is called God in a lower sense of the term, 
and that the Supreme and Self-existent One is neither the Father nor the 
Son cor the Holy Ghost, but the true God compounded of the three persons 
or agents ; in other words, that, taken individually, neither of them is the 
true God, but that, collectively, the three constitute the true God ; the three 
highest but finite beings, from whom all existence is derived, making alto- 
gether one Infinite Being. Or, 2. That only the first of the intelligent agents 
in the Trinity is God, agreeably to the strictest sense of that word ; that he 
only is a self-existent and independent being, — the second and the third, 
derived and dependent; but that these belong to the Godhead, because 
they were superior to all other finite beings, and had, by the will of the 
Father, and in a peculiar and ineffable manner, partaken of all his attri- 
butes, with the single exception of self-existence. According to the first 
of these alternatives, a manifest contradiction is involved in the terms of 
the proposition; according to the second, the three persons are not equal to 
each other. Strange that a doctrine leading to such conclusions should 
have been avowedly held by a majority of Trinitarian writers ! 

IV. If, agreeably to another phasis of the doctrine of the Trinity, the 
word " person " is explained to mean an eternal, infinite agent, mind, spirit, 
or bsing, and it is asserted that there are three such intelligent existences in 
the Godhead, equal to each other in all divine perfections, the result will be, 
unless the words have a meaning directly adverse to what we usually attri- 
bute to them, that there are three infinite Gods ; and that, by saying there 
is only one God, we either contradict ourselves, or intend merely to affirm 
that the three Gods harmonize so completely in their wills and modes of ope- 
ration, that they are in effect but one essentially Divine Being, — one God. 






260 THE APOSTOLIC TRINITY. 

We have not attempted to trace a tithe of the consequences resulting 
from the various explanations of the word " person," as used by its sup- 
porters in stating the doctrine of a Triune God ; nor have we, in all cases, 
employed the phraseology which they adopt. The copious statements of 
the Trinity, however, from orthodox authorities, with some of the objections 
made to them by other professed Trinitarians, which are now to be pre- 
sented, will, we think, justify what has been already said, and, in a great 
measure, supply what has been omitted. 



§ 1. The Apostolic or Unitarian Trinity. 

I believe in God, the Father, Almighty; and in Jesus Christ, his 
only-begotten Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary by 
the Holy Ghost, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, arose from 
the dead on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and sits at the 
right hand of the Father, whence he will come to judge the living 
and the dead j and in the Holy Spirit, the holy church, the remission 
of sins, and the resurrection of the body. — The Apostles' Creed 
(so called). 

The " Apostles' Creed " we have given as it appears in a note to 
Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History (vol. i. p. 80), translated by Dr. Murdoch, 
who says that this was " the common form of it in the fourth century, as 
used in most churches in Europe, Asia, and Africa, except some slight 
verbal discrepancies.' , It was once the prevailing opinion, that this creed 
was actually the production of the apostles ; but, though it was undoubt- 
edly in use at a very early age of the church, the evidence for its genuine- 
ness as an apostolic composition seems not to be valid. It is, however, 
with the exception of the creeds of the New Testament, the simplest of all 
existing forms (see pp. 243-6 of the present work); and it is remarkable 
that it says nothing whatever of a Trinity in Unity, of the Deity of Christ, 
or of the separate personality of the Holy Spirit. It is strictly and tho- 
roughly Unitarian: "I believe in God, the Father, Almighty; and in Jesus 
Christ, Ins only-begotten Son, . . . ; and in the Holy Spirit." 

REMARKS. 

As for the parts thereof [of the Apostles' Creed] which were un- 
doubtedly most ancient, the matter of them is so manifestly contained 
in the Scripture, and, supposing the truth of Christianity itself, they 
are so certain, that they need no other authority to support them than 
what Christianity itself subsists upon ; and, for other points afterwards 
added, they cannot, by virtue of being inserted there, pretend to 
apostolic authority. — Dr. Isaac Barrow: Exposition of the Creed; 
in Works, p. 572. 



THE APOSTOLIC TRINITY. 261 

That the unity of the Godhead is concluded in this article is appa- 
rent, not only because the Nicene Council so expressed it by way of 
exposition, but also because this creed in the churches of the East, 
before the Council of Nice, had that addition in it, " I believe in one 
God." — Bishop Pearson: Exposition of the Creed, Art. L p. 32. 

It will be convenient to take notice of the observation of Rufinus, 
u that, in all the Eastern creeds, it is, ' I believe in one God, the 
Father ; ' " where, if by the Eastern he means the Nicene or Con- 
stantinopolitan, it is certainly true ; or, if he means the ancient creeds 
used before either of those, it is true not only of the Eastern, but of 
the Western also ; for in all the most primitive creeds, whether Latin 
or Greek, tins article runs, " I believe in one God," or " in the only 
God ; " as in the two creeds of Irenseus, and three of Origen's, iva tiebv, 
one God ; and in three of Tertullian's, unum or unicum Deum, one or 
the only God. — Sir Peter King : History of the Apostles' Creed, 
page 50. 

From the Apostles' Creed it may be possible to deduce the catho- 
lic doctrine of the Trinity; but assuredly it is not fully expressed 
therein. ... It has, as it appears to me, indirectly favored Arianism 
and Socinianism. — S. T. Coleridge : Literary Remains ; in Works, 
vol v. pp. 229, 421. 

A Trinity, such as is acknowledged by Christian Unitarians, may be 
easily deduced from this creed; but how it can be possible to deduce from 
it Trinitarianism, or a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, is to us as in- 
conceivable as it would be to infer this dogma from the simple declaration 
of the Apostle Peter, that " God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the holy 
spirit and with power." 

I believe that the Apostles' Creed may be taken as a specimen of 
truths held by the general consent of Christians ; for every thing there 
(except the descent into hell, which was a later insertion) is in almost 
the very words of Scripture. — Dr. Thomas Arnold : Letter 156 ; 
in Life and Correspondence, p. 298. 

The Apostles' Creed ... is a most valuable monument of the 
church, because it shows what in the early ages were considered as 
the great, the peculiar, and the essential doctrines of the gospel, viz., 
those all-important facts which are summarily recounted in this creed. 
— Dr. Murdoch, in his Translation of Mosheirrfs Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. i. pp. 79, 80, note. 

If we examine the history of these first ages, we find them speak- 
ing, in the utmost simplicity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; 






262 THE APOSTOLIC TRINITY. 

but having still, confessedly, no speculative theory or dogmatic scheme 
of Trinity. . • . They had the word of God in power, but not as yet in 
science : Christian dogmatics were yet to be invented. If you desire 
to see the form in winch they summed up the Christian truth, you 
have it in what is called the Apostles' Creed. This beautiful compend 
was gradually prepared or accumulated in the age prior to theology j 
most of it, probably, in the time of the Apostolic Fathers. It is 
purely historic, — a simple compendium of Christian fact, without a 
trace of what we sometimes call doctrine ; that is, nothing is drawn 
out into speculative propositions, or propounded as a dogma, in terms 
of science. — Dr. Horace Bushnell : God in Christ, pp. 286-7. 

Let any one place the Apostles' Creed beside that of the West- 
minster Assembly, and see what a vast expansion of revealed truth 
has taken place. The former was all that the mind of the church, in 
that age of infancy, was able to eliminate and systematize out of the 
Scriptures ; and this simple statement was sufficient to satisfy the 
imperfectly developed scientific wants of the early church. The latter 
creed was what the mind of the church was able to construct out of 
the elements of the very same written revelation, after fifteen hundred 
years of study and reflection upon them. The " words," the doctrinal 
elements, of Scripture are " spirit and life," and hence, like all spirit 
and all life, are capable of expansion. Upon them, the historic Chris- 
tian mind, age after age, has expended its best reflection ; and now 
the result is an enlarged and systematized statement such as the early 
church could not have made, and did not need. — Professor W. 
G. T. Shedd, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for April, 1854 j voL xL 
pp. 384-5. 

From this quotation it would seem, that, the nearer we approach the time 
of the apostles, the less Trinitarianism is found in the Christian church; 
and that, the further we recede from it, the more dogmatic, orthodox, and 
metaphysical the doctrine becomes. The mind of the early Christians wa3 
too simple and unsophisticated to discern in the Scriptures the doctrine of 
a Triune God; and it was only by degrees, after centuries of reflection had 
been employed in systematizing the Bible, that men and women could elimi- 
nate the mystery of a divine plurality from the words of Moses and Christ, 
"Jehovah, our God, is one Jehovah; " and a Trinity of eternal persons from 
the writings of those who constantly inculcated the great truths that there 
is but one God, the Father; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son and Ser- 
vant of God, — the Man of Nazareth, who was raised up, commissicned, 
approved, and anointed by the Father to act as the Teacher and Regenerator 
of the human race. 



THE NICENE TRINITY. 263 



§ 2. The original Nicene Trinity. 

We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, the Maker of all 
things visible and invisible : and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God, begotten of the Father, only-begotten (that is) of the sub- 
stance of the Father j God of God, Light of Light, very God of very 
God ; begotten, not made ; of the same substance with the Father ; 
by whom all things were made that are in heaven and that are in 
earth ; who for us men, and for our salvation, descended, and was 
incarnate, and became man ; suffered, and rose again the third day ; 
ascended into the heavens ; and will come to judge the living and the 
dead : and in the Holy Spirit. But those who say that there was a 
time when he was not, and that he was not before he was begotten, 
and that he was made out of nothing, or affirm that he is of any other 
substance or essence, or that the Son of God is created, and mutable 
or changeable, the catholic church doth pronounce accursed. — Nicene 
Creed, as given by Dr. Murdoch in his Translation of Mosheim's 
Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 293, note. 

Dr. Murdock says that " the creed used in the Catholic, Lutheran, and 
English churches, and called the Nicene Creed, is in reality the creed set 
forth by the Council of Constantinople in the year 381," and " is considera- 
bly more full than the original Nicene Creed." 

This creed, which was established at the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, 
somewhat approximates to the orthodox belief now professed; but it makes 
no mention of the co-equality of the Son with the Father, the personality or 
Divinity of the Holy Ghost, or a Trinity in Unity. Like the " Apostles' 
Creed," it is Unitarian in making a profession of faith in one God, the 
Father, and in the derived existence of his Son Jesus Christ; but it so 
far departs from this doctrine as to introduce an article of belief in another 
Deity, — the uncreated Deity of Christ. In other words, it propounds, as 
we conceive, a Duality of Gods, — one of the Gods being derived from the 
other; and ends by pronouncing a curse against those who cannot help 
thinking and asserting that this portion of the creed is neither apostolical 
nor rational. 



This, I say, our Christian Platonist supposes to be much more 
wonderful, that this so great and abstruse a mystery, of three eternal 
hypostases in the Deity, should thus by pagan philosophers, so long 
before Christianity, have been asserted as the principle and original 
of the whole world ; it being more indeed than was acknowledged by 
the Xi^ene fathers themselves ; they then not so much as determininar 






264 THE CONSTANTINOPOLITAN TRINITY. 

that the Holy Ghost was an hypostasis, much less that he was God. — 
Dr. R. Cudworth : Intellect. Syst. of the Universe, vol. i. p. 779. 

The Nicene Symbol . . . presents the Father as the Movuc, the 
Divinity or proper Godhead in and of himself exclusively : it repre- 
sents him as the Fons et Principium of the Son, and therefore gives 
him superior power and glory. It does not even assert the claims of 
the Blessed Spirit to Godhead, and therefore leaves room to doubt 
whether it means to recognize a Trinity, or only a Duality. . . . The 
Nicene Symbol, then, does not appear plainly and explicitly to ac- 
knowledge that "there are three persons in one God, the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; " nor that " these three are one God, the 
same in substance, and equal in power and glory." No : it comes, or 
seems to come, far short of this. — Moses Stuart, in Biblical 
Repository for April, 1835; vol. v. pp. 317-18. 



§ 3. The Constantinopolitan Trinity. 

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and 
earth, and of all things visible and invisible : and in one Lord Jesus 
Christ, the only-begotten Son of God ; begotten of his Father before 
all worlds ; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God j 
begotten, not made ; being of one substance with the Father ; by 
whom all things were made ; wha for us men, and for our salvation, 
came down from heaven ; and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of 
the Virgin Mary ; and was made man ; and was crucified also for us 
under Pontius Pilate : he suffered, and was buried ; and the third 
day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into 
heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father ; and he shall 
come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead ; whose 
kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the 
Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Fatner and the Son ; 
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glori- 
fied; who spake by the prophets. And I believe one catholic and 
apostolic church; I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of 
sins ; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the 
world to come. Amen. — Constantinopolitan Creed. 

This creed, which we take from the English " Book of Common Prayer," 
is the Nicene, enlarged by the Council of Constantinople, and mentioning* 
among other particulars, the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Fathei. 
The words. u and the Son," wore not added till a considerable time after. 



THE TRINITY OF UNEQUAL PERSONS. 265 



§ 4. The Trixity of Unequal Persons or Gods. 

This kind of Trinity, to the titling of which many would object, but 
which appears to us strictly characteristic of it, will be found to bear a 
strong likeness to that of the Nicene and the Constantinopolitan Creed; but 
is placed separately here, because it gives a peculiar prominence to the 
Superiority of the Father over the Son and the Holy Ghost. It probably 
represents the general opinion of Christians at the present day, as well as 
of the fathers who nourished at or near the time when the Nicene Creed 
was established; though, in writing avowedly against Unitarianism, com- 
paratively few would now be willing to make so express a recognition of 
inequality as is observable in the following extracts. 

We must not so far endeavor to involve ourselves in the darkness 
of this mystery as to deny that glory which is clearly due unto the 
Father ; whose pre-eminence undeniably consisteth in this, that he is 
God, not of any other, but of himself; and that there is no other 
person who is God, but is God of him. It is no diminution to the 
Son to say he is from another, for his very name imports as much ; 
but it were a diminution to the Father to speak so of him ; and there 
must be some pre-eminence where there is place for derogation. What 
the Father is, he is from none ; what the Son is, he is from him : 
what the first is, he giveth ; what the second is, he receiveth. The 
first is a Father indeed by reason of his Son, but he is not God by 
reason of him; whereas the Son is not so only in regard of the 
Father, but also God by reason of the same. . . . This priority doth 
properly and naturally result from the divine paternity ; so that the 
Son must necessarily be second unto the Father, from whom he 
receiveth his origination, and the Holy Ghost unto the Son. Neither 
can we be thought to want a sufficient foundation for this priority of 
the first person of the Trinity, if we look upon the numerous testi- 
monies of the ancient doctors of the church, who have not stuck to 
call the Father the Origin, the Cause, the Author, the Hoot, the 
Fountain, and the Head of the Son, or the whole Divinity. . . . The 
proper notion of the Father in whom we believe is this, that he is a 
person subsisting eternally in the one infinite essence of the Godhead ; 
which essence or subsistence he hath received from no other person, 
but hath communicated the same essence, in which himself subsisteth, 
by generation to another person, who by that generation is the Son. — 
Bishop Pearson : Exposition of the Creed, Art. I. pp. 49, 50, 52, 
56-7. 

23 






266 THE TRINITY OF UNEQUAL PERSONS. 

There is evidently some subordination amongst these three per* 
sons ; because the Father possesses the divine nature from himself, but 
the Son and Holy Spirit have it from the Father, who is therefore the 
Fountain and Origin of their Divinity. ... In dignity and power 
the Father is supereminent in respect to the Son, and the Father and 
Son in respect to the Holy Spirit ; since it is more honorable to beget 
than to be begotten, to cause to proceed than to proceed. The sender 
has also power over the person sent ; but the messenger, not over him 
by whom he is commissioned. But God the Father is everywhere 
said to have sent the Son ; and the Son refers all things that he does 
to his Father as the author : see John vi. 57 ; v. 19, 20, 30. The 
Scripture, accordingly, terms the Father sometimes " God " in an abso- 
lute sense, John iii. 16. Rom. viii. 31, 32. Gal. iv. 4. 1 John iv. 9, 10, 
et al. ; and sometimes " the God of Jesus Christ," John xx. 17. Heb. 
i. 9 ; and the Son himself plainly says that the Father is greater than 
he, John xiv. 28. — Philip Limborch : Theologia Christiana, 
lib. ii. cap. 17, § 25. 

Though all created beings are the creatures of the Father, of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the catholic faith requires us to own 
the Father as the Source and Head in the work of creation, and the 
two other persons as acting in and executing the same work, but in 
harmonious subordination to him as the Head and Centre of Divinity. 
... Of these persons, only one can be self-existent and unoriginated, 
the Cause and Original of all things, who is denominated God the 
Father : but the Father alone is self-existent and unoriginated ; there- 
fore the Son must have derived his being and essence from the Father. 

The doctrine here delivered accords with the sentiments of 

the most learned and zealous defenders of the orthodox faith in every 
age. — George Holden : Scripture Testimonies, pp. 336, 437, 444. 

REMARKS. 

Whoever asserts that the Son owes his essence to the Father, 
denies him to be self-existent. ... If we admit the whole essence to 
be solely in the Father, either it will be divisible, or it will be taken 
away from the Son ; and so, being despoiled of his essence, he will be 
only a titular God. The divine essence, according to these triflers, 
belongs solely to the Father, inasmuch as he alone possesses it, and ji 
the author of the essence of the Son. Thus the Divinity of the Son 
will be a kind of emanation from the essence of God, or a derivation 
of a part from the whole. . . . Although we confess, in point of order 



THE TRINITY OF UNEQUAL PERSONS. 267 

and degree, that the Father is the Fountain of the Deity, yet we pro- 
nounce it a detestable figment that the essence belongs exclusively to 
the Father, as though he were the author of the Deity of the Son ; 
because, on this supposition, either the essence would be divided, or 
Christ would be only a titular and imaginary God. If they admit that 
the Son is God, but inferior to the Father, then in him the essence 
must be begotten and created, which in the Father is unbegotten and 
uncreated. — John Calvin : Institutes of the Christian Religion, 
book i. chap. xiii. 23, 24. 

If we are not to condemn and damn the ancients for embracing an 
opinion which supposes three distinct substances, and, by consequence, 
three Gods, — though this name be given the Father in a more exalted 
sense, and hereby the unity of the Supreme Being secured, — neither 
ought we to condemn the present Christian world for owning only 
one individual substance in the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit. ... K it is thought hard to accuse the ancients as being 
Tritheists, neither ought we to term the present Christians, Sabellians 
or Socinians. — Le Clerc : Abstract of Dr. Clarke's Polemical 
Writings, p. 127. 

In this paragraph, Le Clerc is speaking of the opinions that were held 
by those called orthodox who lived at or near the time of the assembling of 
the Nicene Council. 

We find that all the fathers before, at, and after the Council of 
Nice, who harmonize with the sentiments there avowed, do with one 
consent declare the Father only to be avrodeog, or self-existent God. 
The Greek ones speak of the Father as the cause of the being of the 
Son : the ancient Latin theologians name the Father auctor, radix, 
fans, caput [author, root, fountain, head], in respect to the Son. The 
Greek fathers again ascribe to him vnepoxvv [pre-eminence] : they 
speak of him as fiei&v [superior], but of the Son as devrepoc &eoc [an 
inferior God]. The Father they style " without beginning ; " and they 
speak of the Son as springing from him. It lies, moreover, on the 
very face of the Nicene Creed, that it acknowledges the Father only 
as the Uovuc of the Godhead : " We believe in One God, the Father 
Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible ; and in one 
t#rd Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Fa- 
ther," &c. Jesus Christ, as here presented to us, is not the one God, 
but the one Lord who was begotten of the substance of the one 
God or the Father, &c. Tl*e Father, then, as presented in this creed, 






268 THE ATH AN ASIAN TRINITY. 

is not merely a distinct person, i.e. not merely one of the three per- 
sons, and on an equality with the other two ; but he is the original, 
independent, self-existent Movac or Unity, who constitutes the Fons ti 
Principium of all true Godhead. — Abridged from Moses Stuart, 
in Biblical Repository for April, 1835 j vol. v. pp. 282-3. 



§ 5. The Athanasian Trinity; or, the Trinity of Co-equal 
Persons. 

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he 
hold the catholic faith ; which faith except every one do keep whole 
and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the 
catholic faith is this : That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity 
in Unity ; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. 
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another 
of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost, is all one ; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternaL 
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost ; 
the Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate ; 
the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy 
Ghost incomprehensible ; the Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the 
Holy Ghost eternal. And yet there are not three eternals, but one 
eternal : as also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three un- 
created ; but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise 
the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Al- 
mighty ; and yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. 
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God ; 
and yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Fa- 
ther is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord ; and yet not 
three Lords, but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the 
Christian verity to acknowledge every person by himself to be God 
and Lord ; so are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say there be 
three Gods or three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither 
created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone ; not made nor 
created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the 
Son ; neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding. So 
there is one Father, not three Fathers ; one Son, not three Sons ; one 
Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is 
afore or after other, none is greater or less than another; but the 



THE ATHAN ASIAN TRINITY. 269 

whole three persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal. So that in 
all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity 
is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved must thus think 
of the Trinity. Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation 
that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
For the right faith is, that we believe and confess that, our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, is God and man : God, of the substance of the 
Father, begotten before the worlds ; and man, of the substance of his 
mother, born in the world : perfect God and perfect man, of a reasona- 
ble soul and human flesh subsisting ; equal to the Father as touching 
his Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood. 
Who although he be God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ ; 
one, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the 
manhood into God ; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but 
by unity of person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, 
so God and man is one Christ. Who suffered for our salvation, 
descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead. He 
ascended into heaven ; he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God 
Almighty; from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the 
dead. At whose coming, all men shall rise again with their bodies, 
and shall give account for their own works ; and they that have done 
good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into 
everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith ; which except a man be- 
lieve faithfully, he cannot be saved. — The Athanasian Creed 
{so called). 

This creed, which is generally acknowledged not to have been written 
by Athanasius, we have quoted from the " Book of Common Prayer," as 
used by the Church of England. According to Professor Stuart (Miscel- 
lanies, p. 70), "it was received in France about A.D. 850; in Spain and 
Germany, about 1030. In some parts of Italy it was current about 960 ; at 
Rome it was admitted in 1014." 

The " Athanasian Creed " is obviously more antagonistic to Unitarian- 
ism than those formed at the Councils of Nice and Constantinople; for it 
exhibits in a very prominent manner the co-equality of three persons in the 
Godhead. But, as the unhallowed temerity and uncharitable zeal of its 
author led him to enter ground on which the sacred writers never dared to 
tread, and to explain, with minute particularity, mysteries quite unknown 
to prophet or apostle, — he naturally lays down propositions which are 
repugnant to each other, and ascribes to the divine persons modes of exist- 
ence which evidently imply the inferiority of the Son and the Spirit to the 
Father. The consequences resulting from the adverse properties of equality 
and dependence will be exhibited in several of the following extract* 

23* 






270 THE ATHANASIAN TRINITY. 

REMARKS. 

[1] It must be considered as a serious defect in a creed, if, exclud- 
ing subordination, without mentioning any particular form, it gives 
no hint of any other form in which it admits it. The only minus 
admitted by the Athanasian Creed is the inferiority of Christ's 
humanity to the Divinity generally; but both Scripture and the 
Nicene Creed teach a subordination of the Son to the Father, inde- 
pendent of the incarnation of the Son. Now, this is not inserted; 
and therefore the denial in the assertion, " None is greater or less than 
another," is universal, and a plain contradiction of Christ speaking of 
himself as the co-eternal Son, " My Father is greater than L" — Of 
the unauthorized creed of the fierce individual, whom from ignorance 
of his real name we may call Pseudo-Athanasius, I agree with many 
learned and orthodox fathers of the English church in wishing that 

" we were well rid." [2] The Athanasian Creed is, in my 

judgment, heretical in the omission or implicit denial of the Filial 
subordination in the Godhead, which is the doctrine of the Nicene 
Creed, and for which Bull and Waterland have so fervently and 
triumphantly contended ; and by not holding to which, Sherlock 
staggered to and fro between Tritheism and Sabellianism. — S. T. 
Coleridge. 

The first of these quotations is taken from Coleridge's " Literary 
Remains " ( Works, vol. v. pp. 385, 536) ; the second, from his " Table Talk " 
(Works, vol. vi. p. 290). If we do not misapprehend the writer, the Atha- 
nasian Creed is heretical because it labors to establish the perfect equality 
of the persons in the Godhead, and thus favors the doctrine of three Gods. 
The quotations that follow are of a different character, and look at this creed 
from another point of view. 

Let us examine the fundamental points in the representations of 
the Athanasian Symbol. The Father and the Son are said to be 
distinguished by the fact that the Father is eternally unbegotten; 
the Son is from all eternity begotten, but never begets. Now, one 
may represent eternal generation to be as remote as possible from all 
temporary and organic generation, yet there remains one idea, after 
all, which never can be removed from this view of the subject ; and 
this is, that, the relation of dependence is of necessity conveyed by 
such modes of expression. Now, if the Father has from eternity 
exerted his power to beget the Son, and the Son has never exerted a 
power to beget any person of the Godhead (which of itself seems to 
make a great dissimilarity between the first and second persons of the 



THE ATHANASIAN TRINITY. 271 

Godhead); and, moreover, if there is no relation of dependence 
between the Son and another person of the Godhead, which can serve 
as an equivalent for the relation of dependence that exists between 
the Father and Son, — then does it seem plainly to follow, that the 
power of the Father is greater than that of the Son, and the glory 
which the Father has in respect to the Son must be greater than the 
glory which the Son has in respect to the Father. The same must 
be true also in respect to the Spirit ; and this, whether we assume, 
with the Greek church, that he proceeds from the Father only ; or, 
with the Latin one, that he proceeds both from the Father and the 
Son. In the last case, the Son is supposed to have only one incapa- 
city, compared with the Father [viz., that of not begetting'] ; in the 
former [i.e. where the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father only], 
he has a double incapacity [viz., that of not begetting, and that of not 
causing the procession of the Spirit], in case nothing proceeds from 
him, and he begets nothing. At all events, the Spirit must be sup- 
posed to have this twofold incapacity [for he neither begets, nor causes 
procession] ; and he is moreover in a relation of dependence ; for the 
proceeding from, or the being breathed forth, necessarily implies a 
relation of dependence, as well as the being begotten. It is, more- 
over, a dependence different from that which belongs to the first and 
second persons of the Godhead; although no one, indeed, can tell 
what it is in itself, or how it differs from the being begotten. — 
Schleiermacher, as translated by Stuart, in Biblical Repository 
for April, 1835 ; voL v. pp. 270-1. 

Many have supposed, that the Son, the second person in the Tri- 
nity, is, in some mysterious manner, begotten of the Father ; and the 
Holy Ghost, the third person in the Trinity, is, in the same mysterious 
manner, eternally proceeding from the Father and Son both. . . . But 
... to suppose that the Son, with respect to his divine nature, was 
begotten of the Father, and that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the 
concurrence of the Father and Son, is to suppose that a Trinity of 
persons is not founded in the divine nature, but merely in the divine 
wilL For, on this supposition, if the Father had not pleased to beget 
the Son, and the Father and Son had not pleased to produce the 
Holy Ghost, there could have been no Trinity of persons in the God- 
head. Besides, this opinion sets the Son as far below the Father as a 
creature is below the Creator, and sets the Holy Ghost as far below 
the Son as he is below the Father, or rather it makes the Holy Ghost 
% creature of a creature ! There are no ideas which we can affix tG 






272 THE ATHAN ASIAN TRINITY. 

the words " beget," " produce," or " proceed," but must involve in 
them an infinite inequality between the three sacred persons in the 
adorable Trinity. On this ground, we feel constrained to reject 
the eternal generation of the Son, and the eternal procession of the 
Holy Ghost, as such mysteries as cannot be distinguished from real 
absurdities, and as such doctrines as strike at the foundation of the 
true doctrine of three equally divine persons in one God. — Dr. 
Nathanael Emmons : Works, vol. iv. p. 1 14. 

Who will venture to say, that any of the definitions heretofore 
given of personality in the Godhead in itself considered — I mean 
such definitions as have their basis in the Nicene or Athanasian Creed 
— are intelligible and satisfactory to the mind ? At least, I can truly 
say that I have not been able to find them, if they do in fact exist ; 
nor, so far as I know, has any one been able, by any commentary on 
them, to render them clear and satisfactory. ... If I say in words, that 
Christ and the Spirit are God, and very God ; and say this ever so 
strongly and ever so often ; and yet assign to them attributes or a 
condition which after all makes them dependent, and represents them 
as derived and originated, — then I am in fact no real believer in the 
doctrine of true equality among the persons of the Godhead ; or else 
I use expressions out of their lawful and accustomed sense, and lose 
myself amid the sound of words, while things are not examined and 
defined with scrupulous care and accuracy. ... In whatever shape we 
present the idea of derivation, — whether we call it by the name of 
" generation," " procession," " emanation," or by any other like appel- 
lation, — still the idea remains of dependence. A derived God, if 
words are allowed to have their appropriate meaning, cannot be a 
self-existent God ; a dependent God cannot be an independent one. 
We may assert what we please respecting the indescribable, un- 
speakable, wonderful manner of generation or procession; we may 
disclaim all similitudes among created things ever so much or so 
strongly ; yet all this goes only to the manner, and not to the matter, 
of the thing. The latter still remains. The idea of dependence and 
derivation is inseparably, and by absolute necessity, connected with 
the idea of generation and procession. — Moses Stuart, in Biblkal 
Repository for April, 1835; vol. v. pp. 277-8, 281-2. 

Another passage, equally strong and well reasoned, by the same writer, 
against the eternal generation of Christ, may be seen in Bibliotheca Sacra, 
Vol. vii. pp. 313-15. His Excursus I. ,on Rom. i. 4 contains also some excel- 
lent remarks on this subject. 



THE WESTMINSTER TRINITY. 273 



§ 6. The Westminster Trinity. 

Iii the unity of the Godhead there be three persons of one sub- 
stance, power, and eternity ; God the Father, God the Son, and God 
the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor pro- 
ceeding ; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father ; the Holy Ghost, 
eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. — W ESTMINSTER 
Confession of Faith, H. 3. 

The Westminster Trinity, the Trinity of the Church of Scotland, seems 
to be a lineal descendant of the Athanasian, and to possess its great feature 
of inconsistency and contradiction in representing three Gods to be only 
one; unless by " the unity of the Godhead" is understood merely harmony 
of counsel subsisting between the three divine persons, — between the 
underived Father, and the two Gods who are spoken of as receiving from 
him their existence. The grounds, however, of objection made to the Scotch 
Confession, in the following passage, are somewhat different from those 
commonly adduced against the propositions laid down in the creed attri- 
buted to Athanasius. 

REMARKS. 

u One substance : " Where is the authority for such an expression ? 
Wliat is the meaning of it ? What can we understand by the sub- 
stance of God ? It has been explained by the word " being." That, 
certainly, is not the meaning in which it was understood by the com- 
pilers of the Confession. In their mind, it referred to some supposed 
substratum, or foundation, for qualities ; some philosophical, metaphy- 
sical speculation, distinguishing the qualities of a being from the being 
itself; which is totally unknown to the word of God. " Eternally 
begotten — eternally proceeding : " Here is a distinction made be- 
tween the mode of the Son's existence, and the mode of the Spirit's 
existence. The Son is represented as eternally begotten or generated 
by the Father. This is a totally different doctrine from that of Christ's 
having been the Son of God from eternity. The doctrine here taught 
is, that the continued mode of existence of his divine nature is being 
eternally begotten or generated by the Father; and this mode of 
existence is distinguished from the Spirit's mode of existence, which 
is represented as an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. 
Xow, what authority is there for such a distinction in the word of 
God ? Where is there any thing approaching the expression, " eter- 
nally being begotten " ? The Confession refers to John i. 14, 18, for 
the eternal begetting of the Son, and to John xv. 26 for the eternal 
procession of the Holy Ghost; but neither of these passages have 



274 ANCIENT AND MODERN THEORIES OP 

one syllable in them bearing upon such a subject. The former says 
that the Son is the only-begotten of the Father, but nothing of an 
eternal prolonged begetting. The latter says that Jesus will send the 
Spirit from the Father, and that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father. 
But this manifestly refers to his coming to Christ's people, and not to 
the mode of his eternal existence. If it referred to the mode of his 
existence, it would seem to intimate rather that he proceedeth from 
the Father only, and not from the Son, according to the doctrine of the 
Greek church. But Scripture appears to me to be entirely silent on 
the subject. — James Carlile : The Use and Abuse of Creeds and 
Confessions y pp. 60-1. 

REMARKS ON THE ANCIENT AND MODERN THEORIES OF ETERNAL GENE- 
RATION AND PROCESSION. 

According to them [the modified views and more cautious state- 
ments of modern theologians], the Father is the author of only the 
subsistence, i.e. the modus existendi or personality of the Son and 
Spirit ; while the substance or essence of the Godhead is numerically 
one and the same in all the three persons. But here, too, a difficulty 
arises of somewhat formidable magnitude. It is this : Father and 
Son and Spirit are conceded to be numerically one and the same in 
essence or substance. Yet, if we are to credit the views now before 
us, we must at least believe that the Father is the origin or author 
of the modus existendi of the Son and Spirit. The whole reduces 
itself, then, simply to this, viz., that, while the substance of the Son 
and Spirit is self-existent and independent, and the same with that of 
the Father, it has still no modus existendi but that which the Father 
gives it. But how, we may be allowed to ask, could the substance 
of the Son and Spirit be self-existent and independent, and yet be 
supposed to exist without any modus existendi necessarily attached to 
it ? And if that modus cannot by any possibility be even imagined 
to be disconnected from the existence of the substance itself, and 
cannot possibly have ever been as it were in abeyance and waiting to 
be determined, how could that modus spring from the Father, and not 
come from, or be necessarily connected with, self-existent substance it- 
self? Or, to put the matter in another light, how is it that the Father, 
being one and the same substance numerically with the Son and Spi- 
rit, could have the attribute of ayevvrjoia [unbegottenness], while the 
Son and Spirit have it not? Do not attributes, at least according to 
the usual methods of thinking and reasoning, arise from the nature 



ETERNAL GENERATION AND PROCESSION. 275 

and essence of substances ? And if the Son and , Spirit possess the 
same substance in all respects (which must be true if the substance of 
the Godhead is numerically one), then how can it be shown that the 
second and third persons are dependent for the mode of their existence 
on the first ? The same causes produce the same effects. If the very 
same substance belongs to the Father which belongs to the Son and 
Spirit, and, as possessing this, the Father has ayevvjicia, how can it be 
shown that the attributes attached to this substance must not in each 
case be the same ? ... To be the author of the proper substance of 
the Godhead of Son and Spirit, according to the patristical creed ; or to 
be the author of the modus existendi of the Son and Spirit, accord- 
ing to the modern creed, — both seem to involve the idea of a power 
and glory in the Father immeasurably above that of the Son and 
Spirit. — Moses Stuart, in Biblical Repository for April, 1835 j 
voL v. pp. 303-4. 

Between the fathers and the modern Trinitarians we mark this 
difference of opinion: The fathers held the communication of the 
substance (rye ovglclc) of the Father to the Son ; while the modern 
formula represents the Father as begetting only the personality 
(ynocTacLc) of the Son, and the Father and Son begetting only the 
personality (vttootclgic) of the Spirit. All these formulae, however, 
make this radical distinction between the Father and the Son ; namely, 
that the Father is unbegotten, and that the Son is begotten. . . . This 
symbol, " eternal generation," has been handed down through every 
succeeding age. . . . But how can they [these statements] consist with 
the absolute equality of the persons in the Godhead ? This we freely 
confess we do not see, nor have we ever been able to comprehend. 
The representation is, that the Father is unbegotten, but begets ; the 
Son is begotten, but never begets. Here a capacity — that of beget- 
ting — is predicated of the Father, which is not predicable of the 
Son. How, then, can the Son in every respect be equal with the 
Father ? and how can one be begotten without dependence, in that 
respect, upon him that begets ? Is the essence of the superhuman in 
Christ begotten by the Father ? Then is the Son dependent for that 
essence upon his Father, and the Father has this one prerogative 
above the Son. Or is the personality only of the Son — according 
to the refinements of modern scholastics — begotten by the Father ? 
Then — leaving out of the question the difficulty of apprehending 
how a personality independent of essence can be begotten — is the 
Son dependent for his personality upon the Father j so that very little 



276 THE ETERNAL SONSIIIP OF CHRIST. 

is gained. Nor is the difficulty removed by eternal gent, ation. This 
may remove an incidental difficulty as to time ; but the iuct of gene- 
ration, and the consequences deducible from it, remain. Now, self- 
existence and independence are essential elements of Divinity; but 
derivation, whether by generation, procession, or emanation, implies 
dependence. . . . But there is still another objection to the doctrine, 
that the substance or essence of the Son and Holy Spirit is derived 
from the Father. It is inconsistent with the unity of the Godhead. 
If there be three substances (ovalat), each divine, then have we three 
Gods, or Tritheism in reality. But if the Father produced the sub- 
stance of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and they are "of one 
substance with the Father," then has the Father produced or begotten 
himself. — Dr. D. TV. Clark, in Methodist Quarterly Revieiv for 
January, 1851; fourth series, vol. iii. pp. 119-21. 



THE TENDENCY OF A DENIAL OF CHRIST'S ETERNAL SONSHIP. 

Probably no writers have unintentionally done so much in behalf of the 
simple Oneness of God, as those Trinitarians who have contended against 
the dogma of the eternal emanation of the Son and the Holy Ghost; and 
for his services, in this respect, the late Professor Stuart stands pre-eminent. 
Of all the theories of a Triune God, that which regards the Son and Spirit 
as persons or hypostases who derived their existence from the Father, seems 
to be most compatible with the notion of a Trinity in Unity ; for, however 
absurd that doctrine may be when connected with the idea of an eternal 
origin and of an equality of divine perfections, it preserves untouched the 
Supremacy and Self-existence of the Father, — the absolute Unity of that 
Being from whom all others take their origin. When, therefore, writers so 
acute as Stuart point out the total unreasonableness and the antiscriptu- 
rality of the dogma of eternal generation and procession, they clear at once 
the polemic field of much of that rubbish which has been brought down 
from tne Nicene fathers; and, by their labors, the question of a simple Unity, 
or of a Trinity in Unity, assumes a more intelligible aspect. Occasionally, 
indeed, they may treat of the divine persons, so called, as relations or 
distinctions in the Deity, to which they do not profess to attach any clear 
or definite meaning; but, generally speaking, they treat of them as distinct, 
intelligent agents; and, this being the only rational sense in which the word 
" person" can be used of those who have communications one with another, 
and who speak and act in different capacities, the question at issue between 
Unitarians and Trinitarians will simply be, Whether it is more rational and 
scriptural to believe that the Supreme Being, the Underived Intelligence 
whose existence and attributes are displayed in the works of nature and on 
the pages of revelation, is one, and only one, person or being; or whether 
he — the one only true and self-existent God — consists of three self-existen f 



THE TRINITY OF SELF-EXISTENT PERSONS. 277 

persons, equal to each other in power and glory, and each of them a self- 
existent God. 

Our opinion as to the value of Stuart's services, and their tendency to 
promote Unitarian views of God, is confirmed by the following remarks of 
a celebrated divine : — 

There are some who think that the Sonship of the Redeemer 
consists in an union of the second person of the Trinity, or the Word, 
with the human nature ; and that he became the Son of God by be- 
coming man ; and therefore, before the incarnation, there was no Son 
of God, though there were a Trinity of persons in the Godhead. This 
opinion seems to be rather gaining ground and spreading of late. . . • 
It is worthy of consideration, whether this doctrine of the Filiation of 
Jesus Christ does not tend to reject the doctrine of the Trinity, as it 
has been held by those who have been called the Orthodox in the 
Christian church, and leads to what is called Sabellianism, which con- 
siders the Deity as but one person, and to be three only out of respect 
to the different manner or kind of his operations. This notion of the 
Sonship of Christ leads to suppose, that the Deity is the Father of 
the Mediator, without distinction of persons ; and that by " Father," 
so often mentioned in the New Testament, and generally in relation 
to the Son, is commonly, if not always, meant Deity, without distinc- 
tion of persons. If this be so, it tends to exclude all distinction of 
persons in God, and to make the personality of the Redeemer to 
consist wholly in the human nature ; and, finally, to make his union 
with Deity no more, but the same which Arians and Socinians admit, 
viz., the same which takes place between God and good men in gene- 
ral, but in a higher and peculiar degree. . . . They who do not believe 
the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ, because it is mysterious and incom- 
prehensible (and to some it appears to be full of contradiction), will, 
if they be consistent with themselves, for the same reason reject the 
doctrine of a Trinity of persons in one God. — Dr. Samuel Hopkins : 
System of Doctrines, chap. 10 ; in Works, vol. i. pp. 299, 306, 308. 



$ 7. The Trinity of Self-existent and Independent Persons. 

The whole nature is in each hypostasis, and each has something 
peculiar to himself. The Father is entirely in the Son, and the Son 
entirely in the Father. . . . When we speak simply of the Son without 
reference to the Father, we truly and properly assert him to be self- 
existent, and therefore call him the sole first cause ; but, when we 

24 



278 THE TRINITY OP SELF-EXISTENT PERSONS. 

distinctly treat of the relation between him and the Father, we justly 

represent him as originating from the Father. We say that 

the Deity is absolutely self-existent : whence we confess also, that the 
Son, as God, independently of the consideration of person, is self- 
existent ; but, as the Son, we say that he is of the Father. Thus his 
essence is unoriginated ; but the origin of his person is God himsel£ — 
John Calvin : Institutes, book i. chap. xiii. 19, 25. 

That is to say, the Son is both an originated or dependent and a self- 
existent being. The Son and (according to the same reasoning) the Spirit 
derived each his personality from the Father ; but this personality contains 
within itself, besides that "something" which is "peculiar" to it, all that 
constitutes Deity; for "the whole nature is in each hypostasis," or person. 
But the nature or essence of Deity is unoriginated : it is self-existent. The 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are therefore, in one sense, three supreme, 
>elf-existent Gods; for each hypostasis is in possession of the "whole" 
divine nature : but, in another sense, they are — one of them, the first, an 
infinite and absolute being ; the others, finite and dependent ; for the latter 
received from the former each his " peculiar something," but not the former 
from the latter. 

I cannot but conclude, that the divine personality, not only of ths 
Father, but of the Son and Spirit, is as much independent and unde- 
rived as the divine essence. — Dr. Thomas Ridgley : Body of 
Divinity, vol. i. p. 263. 

If the Scriptures do reveal the fact, that there are three persons in 
the Godhead ; that there is a distinction which affords grounds for the 
respective appellations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; which lays 
the foundation for the application of the personal pronouns, /, Thou, 
He ; which renders it proper to speak of " sending " and " being sent ; " 
to speak of Christ as " being with God," " being in his bosom," and 
of other things of the like nature in the like way, and yet to hold that 
the divine nature equally belongs to each, — then it is, like every other 
fact revealed, to be received simply on the credit of divine revelation. 
. . . Instructed as I have been in respect to the nature of true Godhead, 
it is impossible for me to predicate this quality of any being who is 
neither self-existent nor independent. These are the ultimate, highest, 
plainest, and most certain of all the discretive attributes of Godhead, 
i.e. attributes which separate the Divine Being from all other possible 
beings. If the Son possess not these attributes, then he can be only 
a God of secondary rank. — Moses Stuart : Letters to Channing ; 
in Miscellanies, pp. 23, 30 



THE TRINITY OF SELF-EXISTENT PERSONS. 279 

According to these representations, the Father, Son, and Hcly Ghost are 
three distinct persons; one of the persons — the Son — has the nature of 
{rue Godhead, that is, he is a self-existent and independent being; but each 
of the persons possesses the same divine nature ; and, therefore, the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three self-existent and independent beings 
or Gods. Such seems to be the just and necessary inference arising from 
the statements made by Stuart in the most popular of his works. We do 
not, however, mean to conceal the fact, that, while admitting the word 
" person " to designate " a real distinction in the Godhead," this learned 
theologian denies that it describes " independent, conscious beings, possess- 
ing separate and equal essences and perfections " (p. 21); and that he even 
concedes the Unitarian principle, that there is in God " only one intelligent 
agent" (p. 42). But we cannot help thinking, that his own language, as 
quoted from pp. 23 and 30, leads to tritheistic results as certainly as that 
employed by many other Trinitarians, against whose theories he reasons 
with so much force. At such inconsistencies and contradictions, we, how- 
ever, utter no surprise; for we feel none. They abound perhaps in the 
works of all who have written at any length in favor of the dogma of a 
Triune God; and it is natural that they should, when speculations are 
entered into, respecting the divide essence, far removed from the sublimely 
simple teachings of that Book, which, through its various contents of Gospel 
and Epistle, pronounces eternal life to consist, not in an acquaintance with 
the metaphysical jargon either of eternal emanations or of self-existent per- 
sons, but in a practical knowledge of the only true God, the Father; 
and of his great Messenger and Representative, the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

REMARKS. 

From such an opinion as this [the opinion of the younger Trel- 
CATlus, that the Son of God is autotheos, God of himself, or in his own 
right] necessarily follows the two mutually conflicting errors, Tritheism 
and Sabellianism ; that is, (1.) It would ensue, as a necessary conse- 
quence from these premises, that there are three Gods, who have 
together and collaterally the divine essence. . . . Yet the proceeding 
of the origin of one person from another is the only foundation that 
has ever been used for defending the Unity of the divine essence in 
the Trinity of persons. (2.) It would likewise follow, as another 
consequence, that the Son would himself be the Father, because he 
would differ from the Father in nothing but in regard to name, w r hich 
was the opinion of Sabellius. For — since it is peculiar to the Father 
to derive Ins Deity from himself, or (to speak move correctly) to derive 
it from no one — if, in the sense of being " God of himself," the Son 
be called autotheos, it follows that he is the Father. — Ahminius, in 
Dr. Bangs' s Life of Arminius, pp. 231-2. 



280 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 

That the Holy Spirit is not from himself, as the Father is, is plain ; 
for, that being supposed, there would be more first principles than one, 
and consequently more Gods than one ; which is contrary to the whole 
tenor of Scripture. — Dr. Isaac Barrow : The Christian Faith 
Explained, Sermon 34 ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 554. 

In his '* Exposition of the Creed" (Works, vol. ii. p. 635), Dr. Barrow, 
with the same consistency of sentiment, says of our Saviour, that he hath 
not the divine essence of himself, but by communication from the Fathei* 
This great man evidently regarded the doctrine which Professor Stuart, 
long after his time, professed, as leading to the conclusion that there are 
more Supreme Gods than one. We cannot help thinking that he is right; 
unless the absurdity of the inference points to a more sublime, a more 
simple, a more rational, and a more scriptural doctrine, — that, to the total 
exclusion of all Gods, whether derived or underived, there is but one 
God, the Father. 



$ 8. The Trinity of Distinct, Eternal, and Infinite Minds 
or Beings. 

[1] A "person" is an indivisible, intelligent, incommunicable 
being or subsistence, who is not sustained or does not subsist in or 
by another. — Melancthon. [2] The word " person " signifies a 
being in itself; that which understands, and acts with intelligence. — 
Morus. 

The following are these definitions in the original: [1] " Persona est sub 
stantia individua, intelligens, incommunicabilis, non sustenta in alia natura." 
[2] " Persona significat ens per se, quod intelligit, et cum intellectu agit." 
They are taken from Professor Stuart, who repeatedly quotes them with 
disapprobation. 

We affirm the Holy Spirit to be a person. By a person we under- 
stand a singular, subsistent, intellectual being ; or, as Boethius defines 
it, an individual substance of a rational nature. — Dr. Isaac Barrow : 
The Christian Faith Explained ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 546. 

Because some philosophers have asserted, though erroneously, both 
the whole world's eternity, and its being a necessary emanation also 
from the Deity, and consequently that it is undestroyable, — we shall 
therefore further add, that these second and third hypostases or per- 
sons of the Holy Trinity are not only therefore uncreated, because 
they were both eternal and necessary emanations, and likewise are 
unannihilable ; but also because they are universal, each of thein 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 28 i 

comprehending the whole world, and all created things under it . 
which universality of theirs is the same thing with infinity ; whereas 
all other beings, besides this Holy Trinity, are particular and finite. 
Now, we say, that no intellectual being, which is not only eternal and 
necessarily existent, or undestroyable, but also universal or infinite, can 
be a creature. . . . These three hypostases, or persons, are truly and 
really one God ; not only because they have all essentially one and the 
same will, . . . but also because they are physically (if we may so speak) 
one also, and have a mutual nepLXupyoie and kvvnapi-ic, inexistence and 
permeation of one another. — Dr. Ralph Cudworth : Intellectual 
System of the Universe, vol. i. pp. 736-7. 

That the three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are 
three infinite minds, really distinct from each other ; that the Father 
is not the Son, nor the Holy Ghost either the Father or the Son, — 
is so very plain in Scripture, that I shall not spend time to prove it, 

especially since it is supposed in this controversy It is plain the 

persons are perfectly distinct, for they are three distinct and infinite 
minds, and therefore three distinct persons ; for a person is an intelli- 
gent being ; and to say they are three divine persons, and not three 
distinct infinite minds, is both heresy and nonsense. The Scripture, 
Fm sure, represents Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as three intelligent 
beings, not as three powers or faculties of the same being, which is 
downright Sabellianism ; for faculties are not persons, no more than 
memory, will, and understanding are three persons in one man ... It 
would be very strange that we should own three persons, each of 
which persons is truly and properly God, and not own three infinite 

minds, as if any thing could be a God but an infinite mind An 

infinite being signifies a being absolutely perfect, or which has all 

possible perfections I plainly assert, that, as the Father is an 

eternal and infinite mind, so the Son is an eternal and infinite mind, 
distinct from the Father; and the Holy Ghost is an eternal and 

infinite mind, distinct both from Father and Son The distinction 

of persons . . . cannot be more truly and aptly represented than by 
the distinction between three men ; for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 

are as really distinct persons as Peter, James, and John Three 

minds and spirits, which have no other difference, are yet distinguished 

by self-consciousness, and are three distinct spirits I grant 

that they [the three persons] are three holy spirits. ... As there is 
but one God, so he is a holy being and a pure mind and spirit, as 
spirit is opposed to mat f er j and thus all three divine persons are holy 

24* 



282 THE TRINITY OP DISTINCT BEINGS. 

minds and spirits, essentially united into one infinite mind and spirit ; 
but the Holy Ghost, who is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and 
a distinct person in the Trinity, is but one. — Dr. Wm. Sherlock : 
Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 51, 66-7, 78, 101, 
105, 119, 258-9. 

We fear that the doctrine above inculcated, though abhorrent to right 
reason and Sacred Scripture, is yet unconsciously entertained by not a tew 
professed Trinitarians ; and in this opinion we are supported by the follow- 
ing remarks of Dr. Knapp, in his Christian Theology, sect. xvi. : " Chris- 
tians in general have been charged by Jews and Mahommedans with 
believing in a Tritheism ; and it must be confessed, that too much ground 
for this charge has been afforded by the incautious expressions, with regard 
to the doctrine of the Trinity, which were common, especially among the 
ancient teachers of Christianity. And, even at the present day, there are 
many common and unenlightened Christians who fall into the same error. 
They make profession with their mouth of their faith in one God ; while, 
at the same time, they conceive of him in their minds as three." Proba- 
bly, however, the majority of Trinitarians incline more to a Tritheism of 
unequal Gods than to the sentiments held by Dean Sherlock, and regard 
the Son and Holy Spirit as possessing each a derived divine nature, but the 
Father only as the self-existent and independent God. 

We make a few other extracts from this celebrated writer; so number- 
ing them that Coleridge's notes, which will afterwards be introduced as 
strictures, may be understood by the reader. 

[1] We know not what the substance of an infinite mind is, nor 
how such substances as have no parts or extension can touch each 
other, or be thus externally united ; but we know the unity of a mind 
or spirit reaches as far as its self-consciousness does, — for that is one 
spirit which knows and feels itself, and its own thoughts and motions ; 
and, if we mean this by circumincession, three persons thus intimate 
to each other are numerically one. ... [2] As the self-consciousness 
of every person to itself makes them distinct persons, so the mutual 
consciousness of all three divine persons to each other makes them 
all but one infinite God. As far as consciousness reaches, so far the 
unity of a spirit extends ; for we know no other unity of a mind or 
spirit but consciousness. ... [3] This one supreme God is Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, a Trinity in Unity, three persons and one God. 
Now, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with all their divine attributes 
and perfections (excepting their personal properties, which the schools 
call the modi subsistendi, — that one is the Father, the other the Son, 
and the other the Holy Ghost, — which cannot be communicated to 
each other), are whole and entire in each person by a mutual cod- 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 283 

cciousness. Each person feels the other persons in himself, all their 
essential wisdom, power, goodness, justice, as he feels himself; and 
this makes them essentially one. ... [4] I leave any man to judge 
whether this one single motion of will, which is in the same instant 
in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, can signify any thing else but a 
mutual consciousness, which makes them numerically one, and as 
intimate to each other as every man is to himself. . . . [5] You'll say, 
that there should be three persons, each of which is God, and yet but 
one God, is a contradiction ; but what principle of natural reason does 
it contradict ? . . . [6] It is demonstrable, that, if there be three 
persons and one God, each person must be God ; and yet there can- 
not be three distinct Gods, but one. For, if each person be not God, 
oil three cannot be God, unless the Godhead have persons in it which 
are not God. — Dr. William Sherlock : Vindication of the Doc- 
trine of the Trinity, pp. 50, 68, 99, 117, 147-9. 

If here it shall be urged to me, that one individual, necessarily 
existent, spiritual being alone is God, and is all that is signified by the 
name of God ; and therefore that three distinct, individual, necessarily 
existent, spiritual beings must unavoidably be three distinct Gods, — 
I would say, if by one individual, necessarily existent, spiritual being, 
you mean one such being, comprehending Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost taken together, I grant it. But if by one individual, necessarily 
existent, spiritual being, you mean either the Father, Son, or Holy 
Ghost taken sejunctly, I deny it ; for both the other are truly signified 
by the name of God too, as well as that one. . . . We Christians are 
taught to conceive, under the notion of God, a necessary, spiritual 
being, in which Father, Son, and Spirit do so necessarily co-exist as to 
constitute that being ; and that, when we conceive any one of them 
to be God, that is but an inadequate, not an entire and full, conception 
of the Godhead. . . . Upon the whole, let such an union be conceived 
in the being of God, with such distinction, and one would think . . the 
absolute perfection of the Deity, and especially the perfect felicity 
thereof, should be much the more apprehensible with us. When we 
consider the most delicious society which would hence ensue among 
the so entirely consentient Father, Son, and Spirit, with whom there 
is so perfect rectitude, everlasting harmony, mutual complacency, unto 
highest delectation, ... we for our parts cannot but hereby have in 
our minds a more gustful idea of a blessed state than we can conceive 
in mere eternal solitude. — John Howe : Calm Enquiry concerning 
the Possibility of a Trinity ; in Works, vol. ii. pp. 549-50. 



284 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 

It may be a question whether the pious Howe, in the preceding extract, 
speaks of three self-existent beings, or of three imperfect Gods constituting 
one perfect God ; but there can be no doubt that he represents the Deity 
as made up of a council of distinct but harmonious intelligences, relieving 
what would otherwise have been the tedium of an " eternal solitude " by a 
free, equal interchange of converse and love. The old Hebrew prophets 
seem to have entertained very different conceptions of Jehovah : u Before 
the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth 
and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." " I am 
Jehovah that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; 
that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." 



I do, I confess, charge this author [Dr. William Sherlock] with 
asserting three Gods (although he does not in terminis express it), 
because of his asserting three distinct infinite minds or spirits. . . . 
The consequence of three Gods from three distinct infinite spirits is 
direct, manifest, and immediate ; or rather, in truth, is not so properly 
a consequence, or one assertion following from another, as one and the 
very same thing expressed in other words. . . . For the words, " infi- 
nite mind or spirit," are but a periphrasis of the thing signified by 

the term " God." If self-consciousness be the formal reason of 

personality in the three divine persons, then there is no repugnancy 
in the nature and reason of the thing itself but that there might be 
three thousand persons in the Deity as well as three. ... If it be here 
said that the three persons are not only three self-conscious spirits, 
but also three distinct infinite self-conscious spirits (as our author says 
they are), I answer that there may be as well three thousand distinct 
infinite spirits as three ; for infinity is as much inconsistent with the 
least plurality of infinites as with the greatest. . . . But how, then, 
comes there to be only three ? Why, upon these grounds no other 
reason can be assigned for it but only that it was God's free determi- 
nation that there should be three, and no more. And then the Trinity 
of persons must be an effect of God's will, and not a necessary condi- 
tion of the divine nature ; and the further consequence of this must 
be, that the three persons are three created beings, as proceeding from 
the free results of God's will, by virtue whereof they equally might 

or might not have been I shall now pass to his [Sherlock's] 

other new notion of mutual consciousness, whereby those persons, 
who were distinguished from one another by their respective self- 
consciousnesses, are united and made one in nature by virtue of tliia 
mutual consciousness : concerning which notion also, I must profess 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 285 

myself in the number of those who are by no means satisfied with it, 
. . . No act of knowledge can be the formal reason of an unity of nature 
in the persons of the blessed Trinity : but an act of mutual conscious- 
ness is an act of knowledge ; and therefore no act of mutual con- 
sciousness can be the formal reason of an unity of nature in the three 
divine persons. The major I prove thus: Every act of knowledge 
supposes the unity of a thing or being from which that act flows, as 
antecedent to it, and therefore cannot be the formal reason of the 
said being. For still I affirm, that being, and consequently unity of 
being (which is the first affection of it), must in order of nature 

precede knowledge, and all other the like attributes of being 

My reason for what I affirm — viz., that three distinct infinite minds, 
or spirits, are three distinct Gods — is this, that " God " and " infinite 
mind " or " spirit " are terms equipollent and convertible ; God being 
truly and properly an infinite mind or spirit, and an infinite mind or 
spirit being as truly and properly God. . . . Whatsoever may be 
affirmed or denied of the one may with equal truth and propriety 
be affirmed or denied of the other. . . . Three infinite minds or spirits 
are three absolute, simple beings or essences, and so stand distin- 
guished from one another by their whole beings or natures. . . . Three 
minds or spirits are three absolute beings, natures, or substances ; and 
three distinct infinite minds or spirits are, accordingly, three distinct 
infinite absolute beings, natures, or substances ; that is, in other words, 

they are three Gods I desire this author to produce that 

revelation which declares the three persons of the blessed Trinity to 
be three distinct infinite minds or spirits ; for I deny that there is 
any such. . . . These two propositions — viz., " God is one infinite 
mind or spirit ; " and that other, " God is three distinct infinite minds 
or spirits " (which he must be, if the three divine persons are three 
distinct infinite minds or spirits) — are gross, palpable, and irrecon- 
cilable contradictions; and, because they are so, it is demonstrably 
certain that the said three persons are not three distinct infinite minds 

or spirits If those three acts in the Godhead [original mind 

and wisdom, — the knowledge of itself, — the love of itself ] are three 
distinct infinite substances (as he plainly says they are, ... p. 130, . . .), 
then in the Godhead there are and must be three distinct Gods or 
Godheads ; forasmuch as, an infinite substance being properly God, 
every distinct infinite substance is and must be a distinct God. — Dr. 
Robert South : Animadversions on Sherlock's Vindication, pp. xvL 
101-3, 106-7, 119-22, 133-4, 216 



286 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 

The assertion, there are three infinite, distinct minds and substances 
in the Trinity, is false, impious, and heretical, contrary to the doctrine 
of the catholic church, and particularly to the received doctrine of the 
church of England. — Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Colleges 

BELONGING TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 

This censure was passed on Sherlock's doctrine, Nov. 25, 1695. See 
Lindsey's Apology, p. 63. 

An hypothesis which leaves out the \ ery nexus, that natural eter- 
nal union, or leaves it out of its proper j lace, and insists upon mutual 
consciousness, which at the most is but i , consequence thereof, wants 
the principal thing requisite to the solvir g the unity of the Godhead, 
If two or three created spirits had never 1 o perfect a mutual perspec- 
tion of one another, that would not consti ute them one thing, though 
it probably argue them to be so ; and but probably, — for God might, 
no doubt, give them a mutual insight into one another, without mak- 
ing the mone. — John Howe : Calm Enquiry concerning the Possi- 
bility of a Trinity ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 548. 

Their explication of the Trinitarian doctrine is unscriptural who 
assert that there are three infinite, eternal, self-existent Beings, as 
distinct from each other as three men are; for this is to suppose 
three Gods, each being asserted to be distinctly a God. Whereas the 
Scripture says there is but one God ; which God, and no other, spake 
by his Son Christ Jesus, being manifested in the flesh. — Dr. Benj. 
Dawson : Illustration of Texts, pp. 129-30. 

[1] Have these three infinite minds, at once self-conscious and 
conscious of each other's consciousness, always the very same thoughts ? 
If so, this mutual consciousness is unmeaning or derivative ; and the 
three do not cease to be three, because they are three sames. If not, 
then there is Tritheism evidently. ... [2] Is not God conscious of 
every thought of man ? and would Sherloci allow me to deduce 
the unity of the divine consciousness with the 1 uman ? Sherlock's is 
doubtless a very plain and intelligible account of three Gods in the 
most absolute intimacy with each other, so tha ; they are all as one ; 
but by no means of three persons that are one God. I do not won- 
der that Waterland and the other followers of Bull were alarmed. 
... [3] Will not the Arian object, " You admit t le modus subsistendi 
to be a divine perfection, and you affirm that it is incommunicable. 
Does it not follow, therefore, that there are perfections which the All- 
perfect does not possess ? " This would not apply to Bishop Bull or 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 287 

Waterland. ... [4] Is not God conscious to all my thoughts, though 
I am not conscious of God's ? Would Sherlock endure that I should 
infer: Ergo, God is numerically one with me, though I am not 
numerically one with God ? . . . [5] Surely, never did argument 
vertiginate more. I had just acceded to Sherlock's exposition of the 
Trinity as the Supreme Being, his reflex act of self-consciousness and 
his love all forming one Supreme Mind ; and now he tells me that 
each is the whole Supreme Mind, and denies that three, each per st 
the whole God, are not the same as three Gods ! I grant that division 
and separation are terms inapplicable ; yet surely three distinct though 
undivided Gods are three Gods. That the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 
are the one true God, I fully believe ; but not Sherlock's exposition of 
the doctrine. ... [6] Three persons having the same nature are three 
persons ; and if to possess without limitation the divine nature, as 
opposed to the human, is what we mean by God, why, then, three 
such persons are three Gods, and will be thought so till Gregory 
Nyssen can persuade us that John, James, and Peter, each possessing 
the human nature, are not three men. John is a man, James is a 
man, and Peter is a man ; but they are not three men, but one man ! — 
S. T. Coleridge : Literary Remains ; in Works, vol. v. pp. 389-94, 
398-9. 

The preceding observations are numbered to correspond with those from 
Sherlock, so marked, in pp. 282-3 of the present work. 

That there is but one God, the Scriptures everywhere assert ; and 
this is agreeable to reason, and the works of creation and providence 
which we behold ; and the contrary supposition is most absurd and 
undesirable, and really involves in it infinite eviL God must be a 
self-existent Being, which is the same with existing necessarily ; but 
necessary existence must be infinite. . . . Therefore there can be 
but one first Cause, who exists necessarily, and without beginning, for 
there can be but one infinite Being. To suppose another, or a second, 
necessarily excludes the first; and to suppose the first, necessarily 
excludes the second and any other infinite Being. The same is 
evident from the consideration of the divine perfections. God is infi- 
nite power, infinite wisdom ; but there cannot be two or more infinite 
wisdoms, &c, because this is a contradiction. Infinite power is ail the 
power there is or can be, and is clearly inconsistent with another power 
distinct from that, which is also infinite. Moreover, if we make the 
impossible supposition that, there are two or more infinite Beings, they 



288 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT BEINGS. 

must be perfectly alike in all respects, or not. If not perfectly alike, 
and without any difference in any respect, then one or the other must 
be imperfect ; for absolutely infinite perfection admits of no variation 
or difference ; so that, if any two beings differ in any respect, they 
cannot both be absolutely perfect; therefore cannot both be God. 
But, if they are perfectly alike in every respect and every thing, then 
they are perfectly one and the same; and the supposition destroys 
itself, being a direct contradiction. And there can be no possible 
need of more than one God ; and therefore, were this possible, it is 
not desirable. There can really be no more existence than one infinite 
Being, or any addition to infinite perfection and excellence ; therefore 
no more can be desired, and nothing can be effected or done, more 
than he can do. In a word, he is all-sufficient, and no addition can 
be made to this, or even conceived. — Dr. Samuel Hopkins : System 
of Doctrines, chap. 3; in Works, voL i. p. 61. 

This demonstration of God's oneness is not made by its author in refer 
ence to any theory of three divine persons; but it may be well applied to 
all such propositions as convey the notion, that the Deity consists of several 
distinct, eternal, and equal or unequal intelligences, whether called persons 
or beings. Dr. Hopkixs here virtually refutes his own Trinitarian or Tri- 
theistic views, as will be quoted in p. 290. 

Whatever disclaimer may be made as to Tri theism, the comparison 
of individuality in the Godhead with that among men does essentially 
involve theoretical Tritheism. If not, then how could the Greeks be 
accused of polytheism, who believed in a common nature among the 
Dii majores ? And if not, then we must come to the absurd conclu- 
sion of Gregory of Xyssa, that it is catachresis when we speak of 
Peter and Paul and Barnabas as three men, because in truth they have 
but one common human nature. It is impossible to put the mind 
upon receiving such an incongruity, without its reluctating. It instinc- 
tively revolts. . . . Now and then, a zealous partisan of the Nicene 
Symbol — a Bull, a WATERLAND, a Joxes of Nayland, or some 
writer of tliis cast — has told us of three distinct consciousnesses, 
wills, and affections in the Godhead, and of the eternal " society " 
which must have always been in it But the ears of intelligent Chris- 
tians in general are not now open to these things. Yet still the 
unwary and unthinking are affected by them, and led unconsciously, 

it may be, into real Tritheism Of some of these definitions, 

i.e. those of Melakcthox and Morus and some others, it might be 
said, that the word " person," as applied to three different men, could 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT AGENTS. 289 

scarcely receive a more full and complete sense than is given it in 
respect to the Godhead. Tritheism in theory seems to be the un- 
avoidable deduction from such definitions. . . . The theory of person- 
ality which represents three intelligent beings, distinct in such a full 
sense that each has his own individual consciousness, will, affections, 
purposes, &c, must amount to theoretical Tritheism ; for such are the 
principal distinctions that exist between three individual men. . . . 
Any definition of personality in the Godhead which represents person 
to be ens per se, or substantia individua non sustentata in alia natura, 
. . . seems plainly and substantially to infringe on the idea that there 
is but one and numerically the same substance in the Godhead. I 
am not able to see why it does not clearly involve a logical contra- 
diction. — Moses Stuart, in Biblical Repository, vol. v. p. 314; and 
vol. vi. pp. 84, 92-4. 

For other valuable remarks on this tritheistic Trinity, Stuart's supple- 
mentary note to his Second Letter to Channing (Miscellanies, pp. 60-2) may 
be consulted. They will be found applicable also to the theory of a Triune 
God presented in the following subsection; for, except in mere terms, there 
seems to be no difference whatever between a Trinity of distinct minds or 
beings and a Trinity of distinct persons, subsistences, or agents. 



$ 9. The Trinity of Distinct Persons, Subsistences, or Agents. 

We should carefully study and duly be affected with that gracious 
consent, and as it were confederacy, of the glorious Three, in design- 
ing and prosecuting our good ; their unanimous agreement in uttering 
those three mighty words of favor to mankind, Faciamus, Redima- 
mtt5, Salveinus, — " Let us make man out of nothing ; Let us recover 
him from sin and perdition ; Let us crown him with joy and salvation." 
"We should with grateful resentments observe them conspiring to em- 
ploy their wisdom in contriving fit means and methods to exert their 
power in effectual accomplishment of what was requisite to the promot- 
ing of our welfare, . . hi prosecution of that gracious design which their 
joint goodness had projected for us. . . . We should set our mind on 
God the Father, before the foundation of the world from all eternity, . . 
resolving to send his own dear Son from his bosom, to procure and 
purchase the redemption of mankind ; . . . then actually sending his 
only Son, and clothing him with human flesh ; . . . also sending and 
bestowing his Holy Spirit to dwell in them [who obey Christ]. — Dr. 
L Barrow : Def. of the Blessed Trinity ; Works, vol ii. pp. lo7 -8. 

2ff 



290 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT AGENTS. 

[By " person "] I certainly mean a real person, an hypostasis ; no 
mode, attribute, or property, . . . Each divine person is an individual 
intelligent agent ; but, as subsisting in one undivided substance, they 
are all together, in that respect, but one undivided intelligent agent. 
. . . The church never professed three hypostases in any other sense 
but as they mean three persons. — Dr. Daniel Waterland : Vin- 
dication of Christ's Divinity, pp. 350-1. 

The Scriptures teach us that there are three in this one God, — 
not three Gods, for this would be a contradiction ; but that this infi- 
nite Being exists in such a manner as to be three distinct subsistences 
or persons, and yet but one God. . . . These three are spoken of or 
addressed in the Scriptures in such terms as are used to denote a 
distinct personality, such as I, thou, he, or him. Thus the Father 
speaks of himself and the Son ; and thus the Son speaks to the 
Father, and of him, and of the Holy Spirit The three per- 
sons in the Godhead form an infinitely high, holy, and happy society, 
— the original and perfect pattern of all true love, friendship, and 
happiness. . . . Jesus Christ, the Mediator, is the medium by which 
the society of the redeemed in heaven will be united to the infinitely 
more excellent and perfect society, — the eternal Trinity of persons, 
who dwell in the infinitely high and holy place, far beyond the reach 
or comprehension of creatures ; from whom the same benevolence 
and social love is shed down through the Mediator on these redeemed 
ones, forming them into one most happy society, in union with the 
blessed Trinity, and so as to be a little image of the Deity, — the 
Three in One, and One in Three. — Dr. Samuel Hopkins : System 
of Doctrines, chaps. 3 and 13 ; in Works, vol. i. pp. 62, 65, and 
vol. ii. pp. 58-9. 

The Scripture represents the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as 
distinctly possessed of personal properties. The Father is represented 
as being able to understand, to will, and to act, of himself; the Son U 
represented as being able to understand, to will, and to act, ol him- 
self; and the Holy Ghost is represented as being able to understand, 
to will, and to act, of himself. According to these representations, 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct persons, or agents. 
Accordingly, they speak to and of each other as such. . . . Thus the 
Scripture leads us to conceive of the one living and true God as 
existing in three distinct persons, each of whom is possessed of all 
personal properties, and is able to understand, to will, and to act, as a 
free, voluntarv, almighty agent. Hence the Scripture represents the 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT AGENTS. 291 

three persons in the sacred Trinity as absolutely equal in every divine 

perfection If there be but one God, then it necessarily follows 

that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not three Gods, but only 
three persons in one self-existent, independent, eternal Being. The 
three persons are not one person, but one God ; or the Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost are three in respect to their personality, and but one 
in respect to their nature and essence. . . . We find no difficulty in 
conceiving of three divine persons. It is just as easy to conceive of 
three divine persons as of three human persons. No man perhaps 
ever found the least difficulty in conceiving of the Father as a distinct 
person from the Son, nor in conceiving of the Son as a distinct person 
from the Holy Ghost, nor in conceiving of the Holy Ghost as a dis- 
tinct person from both the Father and Son ; but the only difficulty in 
this case lies in conceiving these three persons to be but one. And 
it is evident that no man can conceive three divine persons to be one 
divine person, any more than he can conceive three angels to be but 
one angel ; but it does not hence follow that no man can conceive that 
three divine persons should be but one divine Being. For, if we only 
suppose that " being " may signify something different from " person " 
in respect to Deity, then we can easily conceive that God should be 

but one Being, and yet exist in three persons The doctrine of 

the Sacred Trinity, as represented in Scripture, gives us a clear and 
striking view of the all-sufficiency of God. Since he exists in three 
equally divine persons, there is a permanent foundation in his own na- 
ture for the most pure and perfect blessedness. Society is the source 
of the highest felicity; and that society affords the greatest enjoyment 
which is composed of persons of the same character, of the same dis- 
position, of the same designs, and of the same pursuits. The Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, who are three equally divine persons in the one 
living and true God, are perfectly united in all these respects ; and 
therefore God's existing a Trinity in Unity necessarily renders him the 

all-sufficient source of his own most perfect felicity We have as 

clear an idea of these three divine persons as of three human persons. 
There is no mystery in the personality of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, though there is a profound mystery in their being one God. — 
De. N. Emmons: Works, vol. iv. pp. 107-8, 110-11, 114-15, 125. 

This is perhaps as plain and intelligible a statement of the doctrine of an 
hypostatic Trinity as can be found anywhere; and is the less repulsive from 
its omission of the palpably inconsistent notions of eternal generation and 
procession which have been inculcated in so many creeds and confessions. 



292 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT AGENTS. 

That is, it is plain and intelligible in so far as it asserts, that the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct persons or agents, equal in every 
divine perfection; each capable of thinking, willing, and acting of himself; 
and each deriving his happiness from the society of the others. To such 
language, gross and polytheistic as a portion of it seems, we can attach 
definite conceptions. But, when it asserts that these three equally divine 
persons are only one Being, it either expresses no ideas whatever, or uttera 
a manifest absurdity; for, as applied to an intelligent, thinking, voluntary 
agent, it is inconceivable that the term " person" can mean any thing else 
but a being. The words are synonymous or convertible. God is a person 
or being, because he ts, thinks, feels, wills, and acts: Jesus Christ is a per- 
son or being, because he is, thinks, feels, wills, and acts. They are distinct 
persons or beings, because each of them has his own separate consciousness, 
will, and mode of action. To affirm, then, that these persons, with another 
called the Holy Ghost, constitute but one Being, is a contradiction in ideas; 
or is equivalent to asserting that the three persons are only one person, — 
which is a contradiction in terms. 



Although ... I would not drop the use of the word " person," 
yet I would protest against the license which is often taken in speak- 
ing of the persons of the Godhead. When authors speak of their 
eternal and 'mutual society, and converse together ; of their taking 
counsel together and deliberating, just as if an effort were necessary 
in order to harmonize them, or to bring them to one and the same 
conclusion, or to be of one and the same mind, or in order to cast 
light upon what it may be proper for them to do ; when they tell us 
of one person entering into covenant with another, simply as divine, 
and before the foundation of the world ; of one divine person com- 
manding, and another, simply as divine, obeying, — all this, and much 
more of the same nature, so long as it is indulged in, will continue to 
bring upon Trinitarians the reproach of Polytheism ; and I had almost 
said that the reproach is not destitute of at least a semblance of jus- 
tice. — Moses Stuart, in Biblical Repository for July, 1835 j vol. vi. 
pp. 99, 100. 

A very large portion of the Christian teachers, together with the 
gersral mass of disciples, undoubtedly hold three real living persons 
in the interior nature of God; that is, three consciousnesses, wills, 
hearts, understandings. Certain passages of Scripture, supposed to 
represent the three persons as covenanting, co-operating, and co- 
presiding, are taken, accordingly, so to affirm in the most literal and 
dogmatic sense. And some very distinguished living teachers are 
frank enough to acknowledge, that any intermediate doctrine, between 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT AGENTS. 293 

the absolute unity of God and a social unity, is impossible and incre- 
dible ; therefore, that they take the latter. Accordingly, Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost are, in their view, socially united only, and preside in 
that way, as a kind of celestial tritheocracy, over the world. They 
are one God simply in the sense that the three will always act together 
with a perfect consent or coincidence. This view has the merit that 
it takes consequences fairly, states them frankly, and boldly renounces 
orthodoxy, at the point opposite to Unitarianism, to escape the same 
difficulties. It denies that the three persons are " the same in sub- 
stance," and asserts, instead, three substances ; and yet, because of its 
clear opposition to Unitarianism, it is counted safe, and never treated 
as a heresy. However, when it is applied to Christ and his work, 
then it breaks down into the same confusion as the more common 
fiew, reducing the Son to a really subordinate and subject position, in 
which the proper attributes of Deity are no longer visible or supposa- 
ble. — Dr. Horace Busiinell : God in Christ, pp. 130-1. 

The moment we conceive of the Deity as consisting of three dis- 
tinct individuals, each possessing consciousness, affections, will, of his 
own, we contradict and virtually abandon the true scriptural, simple 
idea of one God. Whatever guard we may throw about our language, 
we do in fact, from that moment, believe not in one God, but in three. 

A leading New England divine [Dr. Natiianael Emmons] . . . 

thus discourses upon the mode of the divine existence : " We find no 
difficulty in conceiving of three divine persons. It is just as easy to 
conceive of three divine persons as of three human persons. . . . There 
is no mystery in the personality of the Father, Son, and Hoi)' Ghost, 
though there is a profound mystery in their being one God." Using 
the term " personality " in this sense, conceiving of the three divine 
persons as we do of three human persons, we are quite ready to admit, 
with the author, that there is both a difficulty and a profound mystery, 
nay, we should certainly add an utter impossibility, in conceiving of 
these three as one Being. It does not remove the difficulty to say, 
that " being may signify something different from person in respect to 
Deity," and therefore " we may easily conceive that God should be 
but one Being, and yet exist in three persons." For " being " and 
" person " signify different things as respects man also, yet it is not 
easy to conceive of three human persons constituting one human being. 
Nor is it, any advance towards the removal of this difficulty to say, 
what is doubtless true, that " the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are 
three in respect to their personality, and but one in respect to their 

25* 



294 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCT AGENTS. 

nature and essence." Personality is here supposed to be something 
distinct from nature and essence, so that what pertains to the one 
does not pertain to the other. Very true. But the personality of 
the Father, Son, and Spirit, according to the author, consists in this, 
that each " is able to understand, to will, and to act, of himself," and 
to do so " as a free, voluntary, almighty agent." But do not under- 
standing, will, and free voluntary action, pertain, we ask, to the very 
nature and essence of Deity ? Can we conceive of Deity as essentially, 
and in his original nature, destitute of these properties ? If not, then 
as personality consists in these things, what becomes of the distinction 
just made ? and how is it that a threefold personality, in tins human 
sense, does not also involve a threefold nature and essence ? ... If the 
doctrine of the Divine Unity be not essentially swept away and aban- 
doned by these and the like representations, then we are at a loss to 
conceive what idea can be attached in any man's mind to that word 
" unity." It is replied, the Scrip tures nowhere teach that the Unity 
of God is just like our unity. True. But what, we ask again, is the 
proper and primitive meaning of that word " unity " ? Are there 
several kinds of unity, as there are several shades of a color, or several 
races of men ? Strictly speaking, is there any other unity but nume- 
rical unity ? And when we think of a thing as being one, or as more 
than one, is not this one of the simplest ideas that the human mind 
can form, — one of its elementary conceptions ? Is it not evident, 
that, when we speak of three or more personal, individual, distinct 
agents, each willing and acting for himself, as being one, we use the 
term in a secondary, and not in its proper and primitive, sense ? We 
mean they are one in sentiment, one in heart, one in purpose and 
action, &c. In this sense, any three men, or any number of men, may 
be one. ... It devolves on those who conceive of the three divine, as 
they do of three human, persons, not merely to admit that it is a 
mysterious thing how these three are one Being, but to show that in 
any intelligible sense, or any proper use of terms, they can be one ; 
that three conscious, intelligent, voluntary agents, thinking, feeling, 
willing, acting, each for himself, distinct from each other, do or can in 
any proper sense constitute one Being. . . . The view under considera- 
tion has led those who adopt it to a method of speaking of the Sacred 
Trinity which seems to us altogether objectionable. They are accus- 
tomed to represent the divine persons as consulting together, forming 
plans, and enjoying mutual intercourse and companionship. [Here the 
critic takes from Dr. Emmons a passage which appears in the Latter part 



THE TRINITY OF THE TETRAD. 295 

of our extract, p. 291 ; and he goes on to say :] We ask, no^ , whether 
there be not, in all this, the essential element of Tritheism. We put 
it to every candid and intelligent mind, whether, if the doctrine of 
Divine Unity were altogether stricken out of the Bible, and in place 
of it stood the revelation of three Gods, it would be possible to 
speak of the society and companionship mutually enjoyed by the three, 
in terms plainer, more direct, and appropriate, than the above. — 
Joseph Haven, Jun., in the .Yew Englander for February, 1850 ; 
vol. viii. (new series, vol. ii.) pp. 17-21. 

The article from which we have made so long an extract seems to U3 to 
contain a masterly exposure of a theory of the Trinity, which, with some 
slight varieties, has been advocated by many distinguished divines. It is 
not the less effective because it proceeds from the pen of one who, in oppo- 
sition to the views of Unitarians, believes (id. pp. 6, 6) that " the Son and 
Spirit are really and absolutely divine." 



6 10. The Trinity of the Ipseity, the Alterity, and th& 
Community. 

In the Trinity there is, 1. Ipseity ; 2. Alterity j 3. Community. 
You may express the formula thus : — 

God, the Absolute Will or Identity, = 

Prothesis. 

The Father = Thesis. The Son = Antithesis. The Spirit = 

Synthesis. 

The Trinity is, 1. The Will; 2. The Reason, or Word; 3. The Love, 
or Life. As we distinguish these three, so we must unite them in 

one God. The union must be as transcendent as the distinction 

My faith is this : God is the Absolute Will : it is his Name, and the 
meaning of it. It is the Hypostasis. As begetting his own Alterity, 
the Jehovah, the Manifested, he is the Father ; but the Love and the 
Life — the Spirit — proceeds from both. — Samuel T. Coleridge . 
Table Talk; in Works, vol vi. pp. 289-90, 314, 517. 

We make no pretension to understand Coleridge's formulas of the 
Trinity. But the curious reader may, if he choose, study what is further 
said on this subject in the " Literary Remains " of the same author (Works, 
vol. v. pp. 18, 19, 355-6, 404). In one of these passages, he regrets that 
"the total idea of the 4 = 3 = 1, — of the adorable Tetractys, eternally 
self-manifested in the Triad, Father, Son, and Spirit, — was nevsr in its 
cloudless unity present to " Dr. Waterland, whose writings he so much 
venerated. 



296 THE TRINITY OF THE TETRAD. 

REMARKS. 

We are free to say for ourselves, that we think Coleridge com* 
mitted an error in leaving the scheme of the Triad for that of the 
Tetrad, in his construction. The symbols of the church, and the Chris- 
tian mind, proceed upon the hypothesis of a simple Triad, which is 
also a Monad, and hence teach a Trinity in Unity and a Unity in 
Trinity. Coleridge, on the other hand, proceeds upon the scheme of 
the Pagan Trinity, of which hints are to be found in Plato, and which 
can be traced back as far as Pythagoras, — the scheme, namely, of a 
Monad logically anterior to, and other than, the Triad, — of a Monad 
which originally is not a Triad, but becomes one, — whereby four 
factors are introduced into the problem. The error in this scheme 
consists in this its assumption of an aboriginal Unity existing prima- 
rily by itself, and in the order of nature, before a Trinity, — of a 
ground for the Trinity, or, in Coleridge's phrase, a prothesis, which is 
not in its own nature either triune or personal, but is merely the 
impersonal base from which the Trinity proper is evolved. In this 
way, we think, a process of development is introduced into the God- 
head which is incompatible with its immutable perfection, and with 
that golden position of the schoolmen that God is " actus purissimus 
sine ulla potentialitate. ,, There is no latency in the Divine Being. 
He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. We think we see, in 
this scheme of Coleridge, the influence of the pantheistic conception 
of potentiality, instead of the theistic conception of self-completeness ; 
and that, if he had taken the distinct and full personality of the finite 
spirit as the image and likeness of the Infinite Personality, and, having 
steadfastly contemplated the necessary conditions of self-consciousness 
in man, had merely freed them from the limitations of the Finite, — 
of time and degree, — he would have been more successful, certainly 
more continuous and progressive. While we say this, however, we 
are far from believing that Coleridge's practical faith as a Christian 
in the Trinity was in the least affected by this tendency to modalism in 
his speculative construction of the doctrine ; a modalism, too, which, 
as we have remarked above, is logically, and ought actually to have 
been, precluded by the position, which he heartily adopted, of the in- 
trinsic rationality and necessity of the doctrine. Few minds in the 
whole history of the Christian church, as we believe, have had more 
awful and adoring views of the Triune God, or have bowed down in 
more absolute and lowly worship before the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost. — Prof. Shedd : Int. Essay to Coleridge's Works, vol. i. p. 44, 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCTIONS. 297 

$ 11. The Trinity of Distinctions, or Mysterious Persons. 

If there be in our gospels a doctrine concerning which a good logi- 
cian has apparent cause to exclaim, it is this : A God who has but one 
essence, and who nevertheless has three persons ; the Son, and the 
Holy Spirit who is God ; and these three are but one. The Father, 
who is with the Son, does not become incarnate when the Son becomes 
incarnate. The Son, who is with the Father, no longer maintains the 
rights of justice in Gethsemane, when the Father maintains them. 
The Holy Spirit, who is with the Father and the Son, proceeds from 
both in a maimer ineffable ; and the Father and the Son, who is with 
the Holy Spirit, do not proceed in this manner. Are not these ideas 
contradictory ? Xo, my brethren. If we should say that God has 
but one essence, and that he has three essences in the same sense that 
we maintain he has but one, — if we should say that God is three hi 
the same sense he is one, — it would be a contradiction. But this is 
not our thesis. We believe, on the faith of a divine book, that God 
is one in the sense to which we give the confused name of " essence.' ' 
We believe that he is three in a sense to which we give the confused 
name of " persons." We determine neither what is this essence, nor 
what is this personality. That surpasses reason, but does not revolt 
it. .... To find a contradiction, it is requisite to have a distinct idea 
of what I call " essence," and of what I call " person ; " and, as I pro- 
fess to be perfectly ignorant of the one and the other, it is impossible 
I should find an absurdity. — James Saurix : Sermons, Xo. XCUL 
vol. ii. p. 357. 

On this passage we have to observe, that the reasoning is either wholly 
unintelligible, and therefore useless; or it proves^ notwithstanding the dis- 
claimer, if it can prove any thing, that there are three Gods. If, in using 
the terms ,k essence" and "personality," we cannot determine what their 
meaning is, — if we cannot discriminate between the one expression and the 
other, or have only a " confused " notion of their import, — it is the merest 
verbiage to say that God is one in his essence, and three in his personality. 
We might as well, in addressing another, employ the words of a language, 
the elements of which were understood by neither of the parties. If, how- 
ever, by the " essence " of God we mean his properties or attributes, — and 
of these we can have clear, though limited, conceptions, — then, by attri- 
buting the divine properties severally to the Father, to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost, by regarding them each as God, or by treating of them as really 
divine persons, acting in different and opposite capacities, as the pious and 
eloquent writer represents them, and not as mere characters or relations, we 
unquestionably think and speak of them as three distinct Gods. To say, 



298 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCTIONS. 

then, that three essentially divine persons are only one God, is as absurd as 
to say that three persons, partaking each of the characteristics of humanity, 
are only one man ; and, so far from being a mystery, — something either 
hidden or incomprehensible, — it is a manifest absurdity, and thus not only 
" surpasses reason," but " revolts it." 

We are led to infer from several incidental glimpses afforded us 
by revelation, that there are certain distinctions in the divine nature, 
which correspond in some measure with the several relations to our- 
selves in which God has manifested himself to us. But what these 
distinctions are, we are quite unable to comprehend ; nor are we en- 
couraged to indulge in curiously inquiring. Scripture chiefly teaches 
us what they are not, guarding us carefully against the notion of 
three Gods : but what are the relations to each other of the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it leaves unexplained ; dwelling strongly 
on their relations to us, as constituting a threefold manifestation to 
mankind of the one God. — Archbishop Whately: Sermons on 
Various Subjects, pp. 199, 200. 

The archbishop goes on to say, that, " in relation to ourselves," this three- 
fold manifestation " is, in one respect, as if there really were three distinct 
beings." Such a result is, we think, not surprising; for it seems scarcely 
possible, so far as regards God and Christ, that any " inference from inci- 
dental glimpses " should overcome the irresistible conclusion derived from 
every page of the New Testament, that, however one in disposition, design, 
and works, they were really and truly distinct beings. On " the threefold- 
manifestation " theory, which regards the word "person," when applied 
severally to the Father and the Son, as denoting u character " (id. p. 203), 
Christianity, instead of being a revelation, would be a riddle. 

I believe, — I. That God is one, numerically one, in essence and 
attributes. In other words, the infinitely perfect Spirit, the Creator 
and Preserver of all things, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, has 
numerically the same essence and the same perfections, so far as they 
are known to us. To particularize : the Son possesses, not simply a 
similar or equal essence and perfections, but numerically the same as 
the Father, without division and without multiplication. II. The Son 
(and also the Holy Spirit) does, in some respect, truly and really, not 
merely nominally or logically, differ from the Father. . . . We profess 
to use it [the word "person"] merely because of the poverty of lan- 
guage ; merely to designate our belief of a real distinction in the 
Godhead ; but not to describe independent, conscious beings, possess- 
ing separate and equal essences and perfections. — Moses S rUART J 
Letters to Channing ; in Miscellanies, pp. 18, 21. 



THE TRINITY OF DISTINCTIONS. 299 

In this definition of a Triune God, it will be noticed that the cautious 
and acute theologian who penned it avoids the use of the wcrd "person," 
though he afterwards tries to explain it in conformity with his theory. But 
does he escape from the necessary consequences of all definitions of the 
Trinitarian doctrine? Certainly not. The first article of his belief — so 
expressed as to speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with a verb in 
the singular number — implies only that the Son and Holy Ghost are one 
and the same existence or intelligent agent as the Father, or that all the 
three are but names of the one God, u the infinitely perfect Spirit." This 
form of faith might, we think, be subscribed by any believer in a nominal 
or modal Trinity. The second article is of a different character, and denies 
the Son and Spirit to be the same as the Father; asserting that they are 
truly and really, not nominally, different from the Father; or, as we cannot 
avoid explaining the proposition, that they are distinct intelligent beings, 
agents, or persons. Not having used the latter term, however, and taking 
for granted that his doctrine is the same as that which is commonly defined 
by the word " person," but knowing that it is employed and understood by 
many to denote a living, self-conscious, and determining agent, the writer 
affirms that it should designate merely real distinctions in the Godhead, and 
not independent, conscious beings. That is to say, it should be used as signi- 
ficant of no ideas whatever. Yet, strange as it may seem, though perfectly 
natural, this vague and meaningless theory — this " Trinity of Distinctions" 
or Non-entities — is usually lost sight of by its propounders, who, both in 
their polemical and practical writings, are forced by the laws of language, 
of common sense, and of Scripture, to treat of God and Christ as separate 
existences, having each his distinct, individual consciousness, will, and 
agency. 

Trinitarians have said a thousand times, that they use the word 
" person," in this connection, not in its ordinary acceptation, as signi- 
fying a separate, individual being ; not as denoting a perfectly distinct 
consciousness, understanding, and will. They use it, in place of a 
better word (as they have a perfect right to do, defining the sense), to 
set forth one of the ineffable personal distinctions in the mysterious 
and adorable Unity of the Godhead. — Dr. Enoch Pond : Review 
of Dr. BushnelVs "God in Christ," pp. 18, 19. 

And, in defining it, do they ever assign any sense, capable of being 
understood, which does not necessarily involve the notion either of a mere 
character or relation, or of a real, perfect, individual agent or being; either 
of a property cr representation of God, or of one of the Deities in the God 
head? Does not the definition imply either Sabellianism or Tritheism; 
either a shadowy and unscriptural form of Unitarianism, or a plurality of 
distinct Gods? 

While it [the modern Trinitarian theory] admits a certain distinc- 
tion eternally existing in the nature of the Godhead, to which it 



300 THE TRINITY OF DISTINCTIONS. 

applies the term " hypostasis " or " subsistence " or " person," it does 
not for a moment attach to this distinction the idea of so many sepa- 
rate individual existences. Not in any such sense does it employ the 
word " person." Calvin himself is careful distinctly to disavow any 
such idea : " They deceive themselves in dreaming of three separate 
individuals, each of them possessing a part of the divine essence. . . . 
The names of Father, Son, and Spirit, certainly imply a real distinc- 
tion ; let no one suppose them to be mere epithets by which God is 
variously designated from his works; but it is a distinction, not a 
division." . . . Just what that distinction is, just what relation these 
hypostases hold to each other and to that divine nature in which they 
subsist, it is neither for this theory nor any other to define. Neither 
Calvin has attempted this, nor any other man in his right mind. — 
Joseph Haven, Jun., in the New Englander for February, 1850; 
vol. viii. (new series, vol. ii.) pp. 6, 7. 

Unless we misapprehend the import of the preceding extract, the writers 
mean that the one God is to be regarded under three different aspects ; that, 
for reasons inherent in his very nature, the one Infinite Being disclosed 
himself to mankind under the totally dissimilar characters of a Father and 
a Son, as well as that of a Holy Spirit. Of this theory of a Triune God, we 
shall, in the following subsection, offer a variety of representations. 

REMARKS. 

While the Unity [of God] is thus confused and lost in the Three- 
ness [namely, by the representation that the three persons are three 
sets of attributes inhering in a common substance], perhaps I should 
also admit that the Threeness sometimes appears to be clouded or 
obscured by the Unity. Thus it is sometimes protested, that in the 
word " person " nothing is meant beyond a " threefold distinction ; " 
though it will always be observed, that nothing is really meant by the 
protestation ; that the protester goes on to speak and reason of the 
three, not as being only somewhats, or distinctions, but as metaphysi- 
cal and real persons. Or the three are sometimes compared, in their 
union, to the soul, the life-principle, and the body, united in one 
person called a man, — an illustration which, if it has any point or 
appositeness at all, shows how God may be one, and not three ; for 
the life and the body are not persons. Or, if the soul be itself the 
life, and the body its external development, which is possible, then, in 
a yet stricter sense, there is but one person in them all. Probablv 
there is a degree of alternation, or inclining from one side to the 
other, in this view of Trinity, as the mind struggles, now to embrace 



THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 301 

one, and now the other, of two incompatible notions It is a 

somewhat curious fact in theology, that the class of teachers who 
protest over the word " person," declaring that they mean only a three- 
fold distinction, cannot show that there is really a hair's breadth of 
difference between their doctrine and the doctrine asserted by many 
of the later Unitarians. They may teach or preach in a very different 
manner ; they probably do ; but the theoretic contents of their opinion 
cannot be distinguished. Thus they say that there is a certain divine 
person in the man Christ Jesus ; but that, when they use the term 
" person," they mean not a person, but a certain indefinite and indefina- 
ble distinction. The later Unitarians, meantime, are found asserting 
that God is present in Christ in a mysterious and peculiar communi- 
cation of his being, so that he is the living embodiment and express 
image of God. If, now, the question be raised, Wherein does the 
indefinable distinction of one differ from the mysterious and peculiar 
communication of -the other, or how does it appear that there is any 
difference ? there is no living man, I am quite sure, who can invent an 
answer. Such is the confusion produced by attempting to assert a 
real and metaphysical Trinity of persons in the divine nature. 
Whether the word is taken at its full import, or diminished away 
to a mere something called a " distinction," there is produced only 
contrariety, confusion, practical negation, not light. — Dr. Horace 
Bushnell : God in Christ, pp. 133-6. 



{ 12. The Trinity of Names, Modes, Relations, or Characters; 
op Impersonations, Developments, or Manifestations. 

As God afforded a clearer manifestation of himself at the advent 
of Christ, the three persons also then became better known. . . . Nor 
can it be doubted but that, in this solemn commission, " Baptize them 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," 
Christ intended to testify that the perfect light of faith was now exhi- 
bited. For this is equivalent to being baptized into the name of the 
one God, who hath clearly manifested himself in the Father, Son, and 
Spirit : whence it evidently appears, that in the divine essence there 
exist three persons, in whom is known the one God. — John Calvin • 
Institutes, book i. chap. xiii. 16. 

It is exceedingly difficult to make out Calvin's opinion respecting the 
Trinity. In some places of the "Institutes," he seems to speak of Father, 

26 



302 THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 

Son, and Holy Spirit as three self-existent subsistences, — which is neither 
more nor less than Tritheism ; in others, as if the Son and the Spirit de- 
rived their peculiar properties from the Father, — which involves the doc- 
trine of One Supreme Being and two unequal and dependent Gods ; and in 
the passage just quoted, as if the Father, Son, and Spirit were only 
manifestations of the one God, just as the sun, moon, and stars, or any 
other object in creation, are manifestations of the Deity, or are the Divinity 
himself, — which is either Sabellianism or Pantheism. In the following 
passage (book i. chap. xiii. 18), if the former part of it be interpreted by 
the latter, Calvin will be thought to reason as if the terms Father, Son, 
and Spirit signified, not distinct intelligences in the Godhead, but merely 
attributes or operations of the Deity, — "Father" meaning a principle of 
action; " Son," wisdom, counsel, and arrangement; " Spirit," power or effi- 
cacy: " To the Father is attributed the principle of action, the fountain and 
source of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the arrangement of 
all operations ; and the power and efficacy of the action is assigned to the 
Spirit. Moreover, though eternity belongs to the Father, and to the Son 
and Spirit also, since God can never have been destitute of his wisdom or 
his power, and in eternity we must not inquire after any thing prior or pos- 
terior ; yet the observation of order is not vain or superfluous, while the 
Father is mentioned as first ; in the next place, the Son, as from him ; and 
then the Spirit, as from both. For the mind of every man naturally inclines 
to the consideration, first, of God; secondly, of the wisdom emanating from 
him ; and, lastly, of the power by which he executes the decrees of his 
wisdom." 

To find out the true sense of the word " person," as applied to the 
Trinity, we are to consider what was the true sense of the word per- 
sona in approved Latin authors. It did signify the state, quality, or 
condition of a man, as he stands related to other men. Hence are 
those phrases frequent : Personam imponere, to put a man into an 
office, or confer a dignity upon him ; induere personam, to take upon 
him the office ; sustinere personam, to bear an office, or execute an 
office ; disponere personam, to resign the office ; so agere personam, 
to act a person. So that there is nothing of contradiction, nothing 
absurd or strange, for the same man to sustain divers persons, or 
divers persons to meet in the same man, according to the true and pro- 
per notion of the word " person." Thus Tully : Sustineo unus tres 
personas ; meam, adversarii, judicis, — " I, being one and the same 
man, sustain three persons ; that of my own, that of my adversary, and 
that of the judge." And David was, at the same time, son of Jesse, 
father of Solomon, and king of Israel. Now, if three persons, in the 
proper sense of the word " person," may be one man, what hinders 
but that three divine persons, in a sense metaphorical, may be on« 



THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 303 

God ? And what hinders but that the same God, distinguished 
according to these three considerations [those of God the Creator, 01 
God the Father ; God the Redeemer, or God the Son j and God the 
Sanctifier, or God the Holy Ghost], may fitly be said to be three 
persons ? Or, if the word " person " do not please, three somewhats, 
that are but one God ? — Dr. John Wallis : Three Sermons, 
pp. 58-61. 

Other remarks, of a similar kind, by Dr. Wallis, will be found quoted 
in the first Appendix to Whately's " Elements of Logic," and seemingly 
approved by the archbishop. 

Self-consciousness is not the formal reason of personality in the 

three divine persons The divine persons are three relatives 

(or one simple being, or essence, under three distinct relations), and 
consequently differ from one another, not wholly and by all that is in 
them, but only by some certain mode or respect peculiar to each, and 
upon that account causing their distinction. ..." Person " here im- 
ports only a relation, or mode of subsistence in conjunction with the 
nature it belongs to ; and therefore a multiplication of persons, of 
itself, imports only a multiplication of such modes or relations, with • 
out any necessary multiplication of the nature itself to which they 
adhere ; forasmuch as one and the same nature may sustain several 

distinct relations, or modes of subsistence In God, besides 

essence or substance, we assert that there is that which we call mode, 
habitude, and relation ; and, by one or other of these in conjunction 
with essence or substance, we give account of all the acts, attributes, 

and personalities belonging to the divine nature, or Godhead. 

A mode is properly a certain habitude of some being, essence, or 
thing, whereby the said essence or being is determined to some par- 
ticular state or condition, which, barely of itself, it would not be 
determined to. And, according to this account of it, a mode in things 
spiritual and immaterial seems to have much the like reference to such 
kind of beings that a posture has to a body, to which it gives some 
difference or distinction, without superadding any new entity or being 
to it. In a word, a mode is not properly a being, either substance or 
accident, but a certain affection cleaving to it, and determining it from 
its common general nature and indifference to something more parti- 
cular. . . . As, for instance, in created beings, dependence is a mode 
determining the general nature of being to that particular state 01 
condition, by virtue whereof it proceeds from, and is supported by, 



304 THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 

another ; and the like may be said of mutability, presence, absence, 
inherence, adherence, and such like, viz., that they are not beings, but 
modes or affections of being, and inseparable from it so far that they 
can have no existence of their own, after a separation or division from 
the things or beings to which they do belong. ... As every mode es- 
sentially includes in it the thing or being of which it is the mode, so 
every person of the blessed Trinity, by virtue of its proper mode of 
subsistence, includes in it the Godhead itself, and is properly the 
Godhead as subsisting with and under such a certain mode or relation. 
. . . The divine nature, subsisting under, and being determined by, such 
a certain mode, personally differs from itself, as subsisting under and 
determined by another ; forasmuch as the divine nature, or Godhead, 
so subsisting and determined, is properly a person. . . . There is one, 
and but one, self-existing, infinite, eternal, &c, being, nature, or sub- 
stance, which we call God. . . . This infinite, eternal, self-existent being 
or nature exists in, and is common to, three distinct persons, — Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, — of which the Son eternally issues from the 
Father, by way of generation; and the Holy Ghost, jointly from 
both, by way of spiration : w r hich three divine persons superadd to 
this divine nature, or Deity, three different modes of subsistence, 
founding so many different relations ; each of them belonging to each 
person in a peculiar, uncommunicable manner ; so that, by virtue 
thereof, each person respectively differs and stands distinguished from 
the other two ; and yet, by reason of one and the same numerical 
divine nature or Godhead equally existing in and common to all the 
three persons, they are all but one and the same God, who is blessed 

for ever If there be any distinction in God, or the Deity, it 

must be either from some distinct substance, or some accident, or 
some mode of being. . . . But it cannot be from any distinct substance, 
for that would make a manifest composition in the divine nature ; nor 
yet from any accident, for that would make a worse composition : and 
therefore it follows that this distinction must unavoidably proceed 
from one or more distinct modes of being. — Dr. Robert South : 
Animadversions on Sherlock's Vindication, pp. 91, 120-1, 217, 241-2, 
246-7, 285. 

According to him [to Sabellius], the whole Trinity is God re- 
vealed ; but the Divine Being, as he is in and of himself, and in his 

simple unity, is God concealed or unrevealed Sabellius 

admitted only three npoaoTra [persons], because, as a Christian, he 
acknowledged only three ways in which God had specially revealed 



THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 305 

himstf; and these three he separated definitely from each other. 

It would seem that Sabellius maintained the Trinity to 

exist, as such, only in relation to the various methods and spheres of 
action belonging to the Godhead. In governing the world, in all its 
various operations on finite beings, the Godhead is Father; as re- 
deeming, by special operations in the person of Christ and through 
him, it is Son ; as sanctifying, and in all its operations on the commu- 
nity of believers, and as a Unity in the same, the Godhead is Spirit. — 
Schleiermacher, as translated by Stuart in Biblical Repository for 
July, 1835; vol. vi. pp. 61, 67, 70. 

The sum of Schleiermacher's opinion ... is, that the Unity is 
God concealed, and the Trinity is God revealed. The Unity or Movuc, 
as he supposes, is God in seipso } i.e. simply and in and by himself 
considered, immutable, self-existent, eternal, and possessed of all pos- 
sible perfection and excellence. But, as to the Trinity, the Father is 
God as revealed in the works of creation, providence, and legislation ; 
the Son is God in human flesh, the divine Logos incarnate ; the Holy 
Ghost is God the Sanctifier, who renovates the hearts of sinners, and 
dwells in the hearts of believers. The personality of the Godhead 
consists in these developments, made in time, and made to intelligent 
and rational beings. Strictly considered, personality is not in his view 
eternal ; and, from the nature of the case, as thus viewed, it could not 
be, because it consists in developments of the Godhead to intelligent 
beings ; and those developments could not be made before those beings 
had existence. — Schleiermacher's Sabellianism f as represented 
by Moses Stuart in Biblical Repository for Jipril, 1835 ; voL v. 
pp. 316-17. 

This has very much the appearance of a kind of Unitarian ism, though 
to us it does not seem to resemble that either of the Old Testament or of tho 
New. Stuart, however, regards Schleiermacher as a Trinitarian, and 
says (p. 268) that he can truly say he has "met with scarcely any writer, 
ancient or modern, who appears to have a deeper conviction of, or more 
hearty belief in, the doctrine of the real Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit." 

What is personality ? Is it essence or attribute ? Not the first, 
one might answer ; for essence in the Godhead is numerically one and 
the same. Not the second, in an essential and fundamental sense j 
because, as we have seen, all the attributes that are of this description 
belong to the one substance or essence of the Godhead. " But, if 
personality be neither substance nor attribute," some one may exclaim, 

26* 



806 THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 

" then can it be any thing, or have any existence at all ? " . . . It is 
possible that there may be in the Godhead some distinctions which do 
not consist in a difference of substance ; and which, moreover, do not 
consist in the high and peculiar and exclusive attributes of that sub- 
stance which constitute Godhead, but which are, as Turretin avers, 
modal ; or they may be of such a nature that we have no language to 
describe them, and no present ability even to comprehend them if 
they could be described. . . . There may be distinctions in the God- 
head that lie beyond all our present logical and metaphysical concep- 
tion or power of definition ; distinctions which are co-eternal with the 
Godhead itself, and which, though neither essence nor essential attribute 
in the highest sense, may still have an existence that is real and true. 

The full sense of the words Father, Son, and Spirit, can be 

made out only by reference to God revealed. But the distinction in 
the Godhead itself, in which this revelation has its basis, is eternal : the 
development of it was made in time. . . . Why should it ever have any 
more been overlooked, that the names Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
are names that have a relative sense, — relative, I mean, to the de- 
velopments of the Godhead as made in the economy of redemption, 
or as preparatory to it, — than that such names as Creator, Governer, 
Redeemer, Sanctifier, Most High, and others of the like kind, have, 
and from their very nature must have, a relative sense, i.e. a sense 
which connects itself with the developments of the Godhead in relation 
to creatures ? — Moses Stuart, in Biblical Repository for June, 
1835 ; voL vi. pp. 90-1, 99, 100. 

The only difference between Sabellius or Schleiermacher and 
Stuart seems to be, that the former regarded the trinal distinctions in the 
Godhead — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — as having had a beginning; the 
latter, that they were eternal, and had their ground or foundation in the di- 
vine nature itself, in the same way as the attributes of creatorship and 
lordship; the development, however, of all these distinctions or qualities 
being equally made in time. But the fair inference to be drawn from either 
of these views is, that there is no more reason for calling God tiiree persons 
or distinctions than for extending the number so as to comprehend all the 
relations which he bears to his creatures, as, for instance, those of Bene- 
factor, Preserver, King, and Judge, as well as of Creator, Redeemer, and 
Sanctifier. 

Thus we have three persons, or impersonations, all existing under 
finite conditions or conceptions. They are relatives, and, in that view, 
are not infinites ; for relative infinites are impossible. And yet, taken 
representatively, they are, each and all, infinites ; because they stand 



THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 307 

for and express the infinite, absolute Jehovah. They may each de- 
clare, " I am He ; " for what they impart to us of him is their true 
reality. . . . The Father plans, presides, and purposes for us ; the Son 
expresses his intended mercy, proves it, brings it down even to the 
level of a fellow-feeling; the Spirit works within us the beauty he 
reveals, and the glory beheld in his life. . . . Each and all together 
dramatize and bring forth into life about us that Infinite One, who, tc 
our mere thought, were no better than Brahma sleeping on eternity 
and the stars. . . . There is, then, a real and proper Trinity in tin 
Scriptures ; three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, — one God 
.... Do you ask whether I mean simply to assert a modal Trinity 
or three modal persons ? I must answer obscurely. ... If I say that 
the) are modal only, as the word is commonly used, I may deny more 
than I am justified in denying, or am required to deny, by the ground 
I have taken. I will only say that the Trinity, or the three persons, 
are given to me for the sake of their external expression, not for 
the internal investigation of their contents. . . . Perhaps I shall come 
nearest to the simple, positive idea of the Trinity here maintained, if 
I call it an Instrumental Trinity, and the persons Instrumental 
Persons. ... In and through these living persons, or impersonations, 
I find the Infinite One brought down even to my own level of huma- 
nity, without any loss of his greatness, or reduction of his majesty. 
... I perceive, too, that God may as well offer himself to me in these 
persons, as through trees or storms or stars ; that they involve as little 
contrariety, as few limitations, and yield as much more of warmth as 
they have more of life. . . . But some one, I suppose, will require of 
me to answer whether the three persons are eternal, or only occa- 
sional, and to be discontinued. Undoubtedly, the distinction of the 
Word, or the power of self-representation in God thus denominated, 
is eternal. And, in this, we have a permanent ground of possibility 
for the threefold impersonation called Trinity. Accordingly, if God 
1 has been eternally revealed, or revealing himself to created minds, it 
is likely always to have been, and always to be, as the Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost. Consequently, it may always be in this manner that 
we shall get our impressions of God, and have our communion with 
him. . . . That which most discourages such a belief is the declaration 
of Paul, " When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the 
; Son also himself be subject unto Him that did put all things undei 
i him, that God may be all and in aLL" — Dr. Horace Bushnell : 
God in Christ, pp. 173-7. 



308 THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 

REMARKS. 

We must allow the divine persons to be real substantial beings, if 
we allow each person to be God, unless we will call any thing a God 
which has no real being, as that has not which has not a real nature 
and essence ; whereas all men grant that there are no accidents or 
qualities or modes in God but a pure and simple essence, or pure act ; 
and therefore the three divine persons are substantially distinct, though 

in one undivided substance It is plain the schoolmen were no 

Sabellians. They did not think the three divine persons to be only 
three names of the same infinite being, but acknowledged each person 
to be really distinct from one another, and each of them to have the 
same numerical essence, and to be truly and properly God, and not to 
be three modes of the same infinite God, which is little better than 
three names of one God. ... By these modi subsistendi [that the 
Father is of himself, or without any cause ; that the Son is begotten 
of the Father ; that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son] 
they did not mean, as some mistake them, that the three divine per- 
sons are three modes of the Deity, or only modally distinguished; 
for there are no modes, no more than there are qualities and accidents, 
in the Deity ; much less can a mode be a God. To be sure, all men 
must grant that the Father is not a mode of the Deity, but essentially 
God, and yet he has his modus subsistendi, as well as the Son and 
the Holy Ghost ; and no man can think that the Father begat only a 
modus, and called it his Son, whereas a son signifies a real person of 
the same nature, but distinct from his Father. — Dr. William 
Sherlock: Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 47, 
83-4. 

Though the Latin word persona, as you say, according to the true 
and ancient sense, may well enough admit to be so taken as that 
the same man might sustain three persons, I offer it to your recon- 
sideration whether ever you have observed the word " hypostasis/* in 
any sort of authors, when it signifies any person at all, ... to be taken 
in that sense ; and whether one hypostasis so taken, as it uses to be 
when it signifies a person, may not be capable of sustaining three of 
those persons which you here describe ; and whether, according to 
this sense, you mean not God to be only one such hypostasis. Be 
pleased further hereupon to consider how well it agrees with this 
supposition of God's being but one hypostasis, or intelligent sufpo* 
situm, so frequently to speak as the Holy Scriptures do of the 
Father, Son or Word, the Spirit or Holy Ghost, as three distinct A 



THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 309 

or He's. . . . But the distinct predicates spoken of the three sacred 
persons in the Godhead seem much more to challenge a greater dis- 
tinction of the persons than your notion of a person doth seem to 
admit ; that of sending, and being sent, spoken so often of the first 
in reference to the second, and of the first and second in reference to 
the third, as not to need the quoting of places. If the same man 
were a king, a general, and a judge, methinks it would not well square 
with the usual forms of speaking among men (and God speaks to men 
as men) to say, that, as the first, he sends the two latter, that is, him- 
self. . . . How the incarnation of the Son can be understood, according 
to your notion of person, without the Father's and Holy Ghost's 
incarnation also, I confess I cannot apprehend. Your notion of a 
person . . . seems to leave the Godhead to be but one hypostasis, or 
person in the latter sense. . . . Doth not this civil or merely respec- 
tive notion of a person, the other being left, fall in with the Antitrini- 
tarian ? . . . And consider whether, by your notion of a person, you 
forsake not the generality of them who have gone, as to this point, 
under the repute of orthodox; who no doubt have understood, by 
three persons, three intelligent hypostases Yourself acknow- 
ledge three somewhats in the Godhead distinct, or else they could not 
be three. I will not here urge, that, if they be three somewhats, they 
must be three things, not three nothings. — John Howe : Letters to 
Dr. Wallis ; in Works, vol. ii. pp. 562-3, 566. 

I have sometimes almost been led strongly to w r ish that the word 
[" person "] had never come into use among Christians ; as it is a 
stranger, at least in the sense of modern usage, to the Scriptures. . . . 
Yet, after all the difficulties which lie in the way, I am not persuaded 
that the word can now be dismissed from our theological vocabulary, 
When the Father is represented as sending his Son into the world in 
order to redeem it, and the Son as saying, " Lo ! I come, my God, to 
do thy will ; " when God sends his Spirit, and pours out his Spirit ; when 
7, thou, he, are employed with verbs, &c, designating purposes, actions, 
feelings, &c, of Father, Son, and Spirit; when w r e acknowledge that 
there are works or developments appropriate to each, — in what way 
are we to designate the distinctions which these things and modes 
of representation seem to imply, if not by the use of the word " per- 
son " ? Let any one w T ho acknowledges the fact of such distinctions 
make the effort to designate them conveniently, and yet avoid the use 
of the word " person," and he will find himself embarrassed. — Moses 
Stuart, in Bibliml Repository for July, 1835 ; voL vL p. 98. 



310 THE TRINITY OF MODES OR MANIFESTATIONS. 

The preceding extract we have made from Stuart as an answer to his 
own Sabellian views. It must indeed be embarrassing, if not impossible, 
for any one to employ language clearly involving the idea of distinct per- 
sonality, consciousness, and agency, as that quoted here from Scripture in 
reference to God and Christ, without being reduced to the necessity of using 
terms less vague than " distinctions " or " relations," — without being com* 
pelled to use words unequivocally implying the conception or belief of mora 
beings than one. We know of no advocate for the theory of trinal develop- 
ments who is not forced, by the uniform tenor of the Christian Records, to 
speak of the Messiah as a being altogether distinct from his God and Father. 

In these broad and bold assumptions [that God is strictly and 
simply one, but that he could not be sufficiently revealed without 
evolving a Trinity of persons, and that these personalities are the 
dramatis persona of revelation] we have the germ of Dr. Bushnell's 
theory. 1. It is assumed that God could not reveal himself without 
evolving a Trinity of persons. By what process has this been ascer- 
tained ? and where the giant intellect that has so comprehended the 
essence of God, sweeping back to the very oneness of the Absolute 
before it invented the triform dramatis persona that were to manifest 
it to men and to angels, and becoming cognizant of the vain effort of 
*' God struggling to reveal himself " ? But wherein consists the 
insuperable difficulty of manifestation in oneness of personality, — a 
difficulty so great that even the " struggling " " Absolute " could not 
surmount it ? Is one less explicable than three ? and if plurality be 
required, simply as a mean of manifestation, why may not two answer ? 
or why may not seven be required ? We have a twofold reason for 
the rejection of this theory, — first, its intrinsic absurdity ; and, second, 
because it passes all the bounds of reason and knowledge, and claims 
a cognizance of the ontology of Jehovah before he has revealed him- 
self, — claiming to know what he is, and what he can do. 2. Again : 
this theory resolves the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — persons 
revealed — into mere manifestations of the actions and feelings of the 
one Absolute. They are not God, but only factitious representations ; 
false in fact, but true in design, — designed to " import God into 
knowledge." They are not God, but represent him ; just as the actor 
is not Shakspeare, but only " imports " Shakspeare " into knowledge." 
The actor may develop fully the genius of Shakspeare ; but, alas for 
the Absolute, with all his " strugglings " ! even the Trinity fails to 
" import him into knowledge ; " for these dramatis persona are, after 
all, only " finite forms," and must therefore fail to represent "the 
Infinite." This Trinity, then, is also a Trinity of " forms," and not of 



SUMMARY OF TRINITIES. 311 

substance. Three shadows are bound together, and to the Trinity ! — 
a God ! — Dr. D. W. Clark, in the Methodist Quarterly Review fo* 
January, 1851; fourth series, vol. iii. pp. 136-7. 



$ 13. Summary of Trinities. 

In the preceding pages of this chapter, we have given at some length the 
principal views of the doctrine of a Trinity, and particularly of that of a 
Trinity in Unity, which have been held by various sections and members 
of the Christian church; and have shown, by copious extracts from the 
writings of eminent Trinitarians, that all these representations of the Deity 
except that in the creed attributed to the apostles, and called by their name, 
are either vague, mystical, unintelligible, or irrational and unscriptural ; 
that, in some of them, the language is so obscure or so abstract as to be 
altogether incomprehensible by the human understanding; that, in others, 
the propositions laid down are mutually contradictory and mutually de- 
structive ; and that, in all of them which are capable of being understood, 
the ideas involved are of a character totally different from that which appears 
in the formal profession of "three persons in one God," — namely, in repre- 
senting the Deity as consisting either, — 1. Of only one supreme, underived, 
and infinite Intelligence, the Father; and the Son and Spirit, though par- 
taking of the same nature with the Father, as dependent, finite, and inferior 
existences : 2. Of three self-existent and independent Minds or Beings, who, 
though harmonious in will, purpose, and action, are, and can be nothing less 
than, three equal Gods : or, 3. As merely one Person or Being, sustaining 
the three characters or relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; of Crea- 
tor, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. 

The same remarks will be found to apply to all the definitions which can 
be given of a Triune God, — that they are either unintelligible or absurd; 
either tritheistic or unipersonal; either indicating a real personal identity of 
God, Christ, and Spirit, that is at war with the whole tenor of the Jewish 
and Christian revelations, or necessarily implying a polytheism which Sacred 
Scripture rebukes, which right reason rejects, and which the very symbols 
and confessions that involve the absurdity dare not openly express. To 
corroborate the truth of our statement, we shall give an abstract of some 
of the terms which have been employed on this subject in venerated creeds 
and by eminent theologians, — a very imperfect list, indeed, but, in connec 
tion with the extracts already made, sufficiently copious to show the perver- 
sity and daringness of the human intellect in penetrating into the essence 
of the Unsearchable, — in diving into mysteries, of which nature and the 
Bible are silent, — in being unsatisfied with that simple and sublime declara- 
tion of Moses, which was reiterated by Jesus, and taught in various forms 
by prophets and apostles, that '* Jehovah our God, Jehovah is One." 

In the following tables, we shall give the precise words of the authors 
referred to, unless where, for the sake of room, abridgment is necessary- 



312 SUMMARY OF TRINITIES. 



SYNONYMES, DEFINITIONS, AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PHRASE, 
"THREE PERSONS" IN THE ONE GODHEAD. 

Three substances Hilary, apud Calvin's Instit 

Three independent and co-ordinate individuals, as ) Gregory Nyssen and Cyril of 

Peter, Paul, and John . . J Alex., apud Cudworth. 

Three numerically distinct natures or subsistences, all ) Ascusnage and Philoponus, 

perfectly alike J apud Murdock's Mosheim. 

Three things distinct from each other, as three men . Roscelin, apud Stillingfleet. 

Tres nescio quid [Three I know not what] .... Anselm, apud Dr. Hampden. 

Tres proprietates per se subsistentes Wirtemberg Confession. 

Three subsistences, each disting. by a peculiar property Calvin : Inst. bk. i. c. xiii. 6. 

Three distinct individuals Genebrard, ap. Stillingfleet. 

The substantial beings to whom we stand related, &c. Barrow : Works, vol. ii. p.149. 

Three persons . . . equally infinite in every perfection Same, vol. ii. p. 150. 

Three divine hypostases H.More: Myst. of Godl. bk.i. 

Three essences ; our Creators and Governors . . . Same, book i. chap. iv. 3, 4. 

A Trinity of essentialities or active principles . . . Baxter : Wks. vol. xxi. p. 308. 

A Trin. of divine primalities, principles, & perfections Same, vol. xxi. p. 312. 

A Trinity of divine hypostases or subsistences . . . Cudworth : In. S. vol. i. p. 725. 

All other beings, besides this Holy Trinity, are finite . Same, vol. i. p. 737. 

Three differences. . . The Scripture everywhere speaks 

of them as we use to do of three distinct persons . Tillotson : Sermon 44. 

Three distinct persons ; three distinct subsistences . Stillingfleet : Vin. pp. 56, 75. 

A person is a complete intelligent substance, with a 

peculiar manner of subsistence Same, p. 261. 

Three divine persons in a sense metaphorical . . . Wallis : Three Ser. pp. 58-61. 

God distinguished according to three considerations . Same. 

Three somewhats Same. 

Uncreated beings Evelyn: True R. vol. i. p. 131. 

4 trinal distinction, or three persons truly distinct . Howe : Works, vol. ii. p. 565 

Three distinct intelligent hypostases Same, vol. ii. p. 568. 

Three intelligent natures ; intellectual subsistences . Same, vol. ii. pp. 583, 592. 

Three spiritual or intelligent beings Same, vol. ii. p. 598. 

Real substantial beings Wm. Sherlock : Vindic. p. 47. 

Three distinct infinite minds Same, pp. 51, 66. 

Three substantial acts; three divine subsisting persons Same, p. 130. 

Three infinite distinct minds and substances . . . Bingham, apud Chambers. 

Three really distinct hypostases or persons .... Bull : Life by Nelson, p. 316. 

Distinct beings or persons, according to the proper sig- 
nification of this word, from each other .... Bishop Fowler: Propos. p. 8. 

Three relatives, or one simple being or essence under 

three distinct relations; three distinct modalities . South: Animad. pp. 120, 160. 

Three different modes of subsistence Same, p. 247. 

Several, particular, intelligent substances .... Leibnitz, apud Stuart's Misc 

Relative and incommunicable modes of subsisting . Same. 

Substantial relations Same. 

Three different titles or characters . Gastrell, apud Huntingford. 

All three, . . . authors of our salvation Same. 

Three real persons ; a real Father, Son, and H. Ghost Waterland : Yin. pp. 20, 336 

Each divine person is an individual intelligent agent . Same, p. 350. 



SUMMARY OF TRINITIES. 313 

The different relations supported by the same person, [pp. 169, 185. 

intelligent agent, or conscious being Doddridge : Lectures, vol. ii. 

Three benefactors Edw. Young: Let. IV. part 2. 

Three beings SoameJenyns: View, p. 141. 

The authors of every blessing Wm. Jones: Cath. Doct. p. 6. 

Three distinct agents; Creators, masters, &c. . . . Same, chaps, iii. 8, and iv. 

Each person by himself is God Horsley : Tracts, p* 262. 

But these persons are all included in the very idea of 

a God Same- 
Equal in all the attributes of the divine nature . . Same, p. 263. 
Three distinct independent powers : three substances Toellner, apud Flatt. 
Three distinct subjects; three equal subjects . . . Knapp : Ch. Theol. sect. xliv. 
Three persons [who] direct their energies to effectuate Huntingford : Though ts,p.9£) 

Three divine intelligences Same, p. 17. 

Holy Gods; Creators Same, p. 23. 

Three distinct objects: . . each has real subsistence . Same, pp. 27-8. 

Three distinct subsistences or persons Wardlaw : Soc.Con. pp.40, 62 

That which can contrive, which can design, is a person Same, p. 330. 

M Person " and " intelligent agent " are synonymous . Same, p. 334. 
Three intelligent & active subjects, which we may call 

hypostases, subsistences, subsistents, or persons . J. P. Smith : Scr. Test. vol. ii. 
The Holy Spirit, a real, intelligent, personal, divine [App. IV 

agent, distinct from the Father and the Son . . Same, Appendix III. 

Relations Arnold, in Life and Cor. p. 52. 

A threefold manifestation to mankind of the one God "VVhately : Sermons, p. 200. 

Characters standing in three relations to us . . . . Same, p. 203. 

Manifestations of the Godhead Milman: H.ofCh. vol.ii.p.425. 

Distinct and separate beings Same, vol. ii. p. 431. 

Three distinct subsistences ; Creators Hopkins: Works, vol. i. p. 62. 

Three divine beings or persons Dwight, Ser. 71, near end. 

Not three infinite beings Same, Ser. 39, in vol. ii. p. 8. 

The meaning of the word u person " I do not know . Same, p. 9. 

The Holy Ghost a divine person; a percipient being . Same, pp. 371-2. 

The Holy Ghost a living agent Same, p. 375. 

All the attributes and actions of a person are ascribed 

to the Holy Spirit [the third person in the Trinity] Same, p. 373. 

Three distinct agents Emmons : Wks. vol. iv. p. 107 

Three equally distinct and divine persons .... Same, vol. iv. p. 118. 

A threefold distinction ; real distinctions Stuart : Miscel. pp. 28, 40. 

The Logos is really and verily divine, self-existent, un- 
caused, and immutable in himself Same, as quoted by Miller. 

Equal agents in works of creation, providence, &c. . Miller: Letters on the Eter 
Three persons, partaking equally and without limit, of [Sonship, pp. 51-2. 

the essential predicates of Div., as self-existence . Same, p. 272. 
We cannot saj 7 that each person possesses in himself 

complete, separate, arid independent Divinity . . Same, p. 107. 

A threefold personality or impersonation of God . . Bushnell: God in Christ, pp. 

A threefold denomination of God . Same, p. 167. [147-8. 

Three impersonations existing under finite conditions Same, p. 173. 

Ineffable personal distinctions Pond : Review of Bushnell. 

A threefold distinction, out of which arises a threefold 

manifestation to man Haven, in New Eng for 1850. 

27 



314 



SUMMARY OF TRINITIES. 




THE APOSTOLIC TRINITY (RESUMED). 315 

§ 14. The Apostolic or Unitarian Trinity {resumed). 

As a brief escape from the labyrinth of darknesses and contradictions in 
which we have been groping, we would again advert to the simple and mora 
scriptural Trinity mentioned in pp. 260-2, and, with the liberal writers whom 
we quote, breathe an atmosphere of a purer and a more sacred kind. 

He that goes about to speak of and to understand the mysterious 
Trinity, and does it by words and names of man's invention, or by 
such which signify contingently, if he reckons this mystery by the 
mythology of numbers, by the cabala of letters, by the distinctions of 
the school, and by the weak inventions of disputing people ; if he only 
talks of essences and existences, hypostases and personalities, distinc- 
tions without difference, and priority in co-equalities, and unity in 
pluralities, and of superior predicates of no larger extent than the 
inferior subjects, — he may amuse himself, and find his understanding 
will be like St. Peter's upon the mount of Tabor at the transfiguration ; 
he may build three tabernacles in his head, and talk something, but 
he knows not what. But the good man that feels the " power of the 
Father," and he to whom " the Son " is become " wisdom, righteous- 
ness, sanctification, and redemption ; " he in " whose heart the love of 
the Spirit of God is spread ; " to whom God hath communicated the 
"Holy Ghost, the Comforter," — this man, though he understands 
nothing of that which is unintelligible, yet he only understands the 
mysteriousness of the holy Trinity. — Jeremy Taylor : Via Intelli- 
genticB ; in Works, vol. vi. pp. 402-3. 

Let it be remarked, that apostolic Trinitarian doctrine — so utterly 
unlike the crabbed definitions of a wrangling and unevangelic age — 
brings the inscrutable mystery of the divine nature to bear immedi- 
ately upon the affections, under an aspect of pleasurable emotion. 
How little has this been regarded by angry disputants ! How griev- 
ously have those misunderstood apostolic orthodoxy who have pursued 
each other to the death, because not consenting to the same jargon as 
themselves ! We cannot too attentively regard the apostolic method 
of teaching this great truth, — of shedding it into the heart. Our 
creed, if derived from the Scriptures, speaks to us of " the grace of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the love of God, and of the communion 
of the Holy Ghost." This is the orthodoxy which, when cordially 
entertained, impels Christians to love each other and all men, and to 
abound in good works, at sacrifices and offerings, with which " God is 
well pleased." — Isaac Taylor : Led. on Spir. Christianity, p. 173. 



316 THE APOSTOLIC TRINITY (RESUMED). 

The author of these catholic and Christian views unquestionably means 
to speak of the " apostolic Trinitarian doctrine," not only in contrast with 
an orthodoxy, which, while wrangling in unintelligible terms about evan- 
gelic faith, is found wanting in the first duties of morality, but also in oppo* 
sition to Unitarianism. There is, however, no Unitarian who would not 
cordially admit the apostle Paul's method of teaching Trinitarianism, here 
recommended; a Trinitarianism which, speaking of Christ, God, and his 
spirit, restricts the usual name of the Deity to one being or person, in con- 
nection with the spiritual benefits of the gospel. 

Both John and Paul place the essence of Christian theism in 
worshipping God as the Father through the Son, in the communion 
of the divine life which he has established, or in the communion of 
the Holy Spirit, the Father through the Son dwelling in mankind, 
animated by his Spirit, agreeably to the triad of the Pauline benedic- 
tion, — the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the communion of 
the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. xiii. 14) ; and this is the basis of the doctrine 
of the Trinity in the connection of Christian experience. It has an 
essentially practical and historical significance and foundation : it is 
the doctrine of God revealed in humanity, which teaches men to 
recognize in God not only the original Source of existence, but also 
of salvation and sanctification. — Neander : History of the Planting 
and Training of the Christian Church, vol. ii. p. 56. 

We quote the remainder of our author's paragraph, which, though exhi- 
biting his approval of the full development of the Triune doctrine, — or 
rather, as we should express it, ot a gradual change from Theism to Tri- 
theism, — shows at the same time that that development, or that change, 
was the product, not of " revelation," but of a prying and a diseased intel- 
lect: " From this Trinity of revelation, as far as the divine causality images 
itself in the same, the reflective mind, according to the analogy of its own 
being, pursuing this track, seeks to elevate itself to the idea of an original 
Triad in God, availing itself of the intimations which are contained in 
John's doctrine ot the Logos, and the cognate elements of the Pauline 
theology." — Had the monotheistic Trinity of Paul and John, so well de- 
picted by Neander, been the only Trinity that had prevailed in the church 
of Christ, what an amount of logomachy, of error, of strife, and of perse- 
cution, would have been avoided! But, unhappily for the interests of 
Christian truth and love, the professed disciples of Jesus, not content with 
the practical simplicity of the gospel, sought to "elevate" their minds "to 
the idea of an original Triad in God," by "availing" themselves of the 
supposed " intimations which are contained " in the writings of Paul and 
John, and by blending them with the reveries of heathen philosophers, 
and the tendencies of the people to give a false direction to their feelings of 
reverence for moral and spiritual worth. 



THE DOGMA OF A TRIUNE GOD IRRATIONAL. 317 



SECT, H. — THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD INCOMPREHENSIBLE 
AND IRRATIONAL. 

I am well assured, that God, who made our faculties, will never offer any thing to 
us to believe that upon close debate does plainly contradict them. — Henry More. 

§ 1. This Dogma, no less than Transubstantiation, opposed to 

Common Sense. 

Indeed, that Transubstantiation is openly and violently against 
natural reason is no argument to make them disbelieve it who be- 
lieve the mystery of the Trinity in all those niceties of explication 
which are in the school (and which now-a-days pass for the doctrine 
of the church), with as much violence to the principles of natural and 
supernatural philosophy as can be imagined to be in the point of 
Transubstantiation. — Jeremy Taylor : Liberty of Prophesying, 
sect xx. 16. 

On another passage, of a similar character, in Jeremy Taylor's works, 
Coleridge, in his "Literary Remains" (Works, vol. v. p. 229), says, "It 
is most dangerous, and, in its distant consequences, subversive of all Chris- 
tianity, to admit, as Taylor does, that the doctrine of the Trinity is at all 
against, or even above, human reason in any other sense than as eternity 
and Deity itself are above it." Undoubtedly, the prelate's admission would 
be " subversive of all Christianity," if a Trinity of co-equal persons in one 
God were proved to be a Christian doctrine ; but this, in our opinion, nevei 
has been, and never will be, proved. 

I was half converted to Transubstantiation by Tillotson's common 
senses against it ; seeing clearly that the same grounds, totidem verbis 
d syllabis, would serve the Socinian against all the mysteries of Chris- 
tianity. — S. T. Coleridge : Lit. Remains ; Works, vol. v. p. 333. 

But, my brethren, as I before hinted, are we safe in at all admitting 
this principle of contradiction to the law of nature, of apparent viola- 
tion of philosophical principles, as a means of interpreting Scripture ? 
What, I will ask, becomes of all mystery ? . . . What becomes of that 
very mystery which we observed Faber put in a parallel with that of 
Transubstantiation when he commented upon this argument ? What 
becomes of the Trinity? What becomes of the incarnation of our 
Saviour ? What of his birth from a virgin ? — and, in short, what 
of every mystery of the Christian religion ? Who will pretend to say, 
that he can, by any stretch of his imagination or of his reason, seo 

27* 



318 THE DOGMA OF A TRIUNE GOD IRRATIONAL. 

how, by possibility, three persons in one God can be but one God- 
head ? If the contradiction, the apparent contradiction, to the laws of 
nature, is so easily received, without being understood by us here, is 
it to be a principle for rejecting another doctrine as clearly laid down 
in Scripture ? and if the doctrine of the Eucharist, which is even more 
plainly expressed than it, is to be rejected on such a ground, how is it 
possible for one moment to retain the other ? Its very idea appears, 
at first sight, repugnant to every law of number ; and no philosophi- 
cal, mathematical, or speculative reasoning will ever show how it 
possibly can be. You are content, therefore, to receive this important 
dogma, shutting your eyes, as you should do, to its incomprehensibi- 
lity : you are content to believe it, because the revelation of it from 
God was confirmed by the authority of antiquity ; and therefore, if 
you wish not to be assailed on it by the same form of reasoning and 
arguments as you use against us, you must renounce this method, 
and, simply because it comes by revelation from God, receive the real 
presence at once, in spite of the apparent contradiction to the senses j 
for He hath revealed it who hath the words of eternal life. — 
Cardinal Wiseman: Lectures on the Doctrines of the Catholic 
CJiurch, vol. ii. pp. 171-2. 

§ 2. The Dogma of a Triune God utterly Incomprehensible, and 
Repugnant to Reason. 

1. A Christian is one that believes things his reason cannot com- 
prehend. ... 2. He believes three to be one, and one to be three ; 
a Father not to be elder than his Son ; a Son to be equal with his 
Father; and one proceeding from both to be equal with both; he 
believing three persons in one nature, and two natures in one person. 
3. He believes a virgin to be a mother of a son, and that very son of 
hers to be her Maker. He believes Him to have been shut up in a 
narrow room whom heaven and earth could not contain. He believes 
Him to have been born in time who was and is from everlasting. He 
believes Him to have been a weak child, carried in arms, who is the 
Almighty ; and Him once to have died who only hath life and immor- 
tality in himself. — Lord Bacon : Works, vol. ii. p. 410. 

The whole article consists of thirty-four " Christian Paradoxes," so 
strangely expressed as to have given rise to the suspicion that they are not 
the genuine production of Lord Bacon, and may have been written for the 
purpose of deriding a belief in Christianity. But there is no doubt, that, 
however absurd they may appear when compared with the dictates of 



THE DOGMA OF A TRIUNE GOD IRRATIONAL 319 

reason or with the teachings of the New Testament, the sentiments quoted 
above are quite Trinitarian in their character; and it is undeniable tha 
Bacon himself was a Trinitarian, and, with all his greatness, not entirely 
free from the errors of the age in which he lived. These " Paradoxes " 
have been esteemed so orthodox, and so full of " godly truths," that, about 
the middle of the last century, they were several times republished in 
London as a penny tract, with a Preface by a clergyman of the name of 
F. Green, for the use of " the poorer sort of Christians." See note iu 
Bacon's Works, vol. ii. p. 401. 

Thai the great philosopher to whom we have referred was capable of 
penning *uch contradictions, is confirmed by the following remark from his 
De Aug. Scient., lib. ix., as quoted by Mr. Yates in Vindication of Unitarian- 
ism, p. 278, fourth edition: " The more absurd and incredible any divine 
mystery is, the greater honor we do to God in believing it, and so much the 
more noble the victory of faith." Well may Papists, in their defences of 
Transubstantiation, triumph over Protestants who adopt such principles. 

This is the great mystery, Three and One, and One and Three. 
Men and angels were made for this spectacle : we cannot comprehend 
it, and therefore must admire it. O luminosissimce Tenebrce ! Light 
darkness. . . . They were the mere Three because One, and the more 
One because Three. Were there nothing to draw us to desire to be 
dissolved but this, it were enough. — Dr. Thomas Manton : Sermons 
on John xvii. ; vol. ii. p. 307. 

That there is one divine nature or essence, common unto three 
persons incomprehensibly united, and ineffably distinguished ; united 
in essential attributes, distinguished by peculiar idioms and relations ; 
all equally infinite in every divine perfection, each different from other 
in order and manner of subsistence ; that there is a mutual inexistence 
of one in all, and all in one ; a communication without any deprivation 
or diminution in the communicant; an eternal generation and an 
eternal procession, without precedence or succession, without proper 
causality or dependence ; a Father imparting his own, and the Son 
receiving his Father's, life, and a Spirit issuing from both, without any 
division or multiplication of essence, — these are notions which may 
well puzzle our reason in conceiving how 7 they agree, but should not 
stagger our faith in assenting that they are true; upon which we 
should meditate, not with hope to comprehend, but with dispositions 
to admire, veiling our faces in the presence, and prostrating our reason 
at the feet, of wisdom so far transcending us. — Dr. Isaac Barrow : 
Defence of the Blessed Trinity ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 150. 

Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an 
active faith : the deepest mysteries ours contaias have not only been 



320 THE DOGMA OP A TRIUNE GOD IRRATIONAL. 

illustrated, but maintained, by syllogism and the rule of reason. ] 
love to lose myself in a mystery, — to pursue my reason to an O alti- 
tudo I Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those 
involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, incarnation, and resur- 
rection. I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious 
reason with that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, " Certum 
est quia impossible est " [It is certain because impossible]. I desire 
to exercise my faith in the difficultest point ; for to credit ordinary 
and visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. . . . This, I think, is no 
vulgar part of faith, to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to, 
reason, and against the arguments of our proper senses. . . . There is 
no attribute that adds more difficulty to the mystery of the Trinity, 
where, though in a relative way of Father and Son, we must deny a 
priority. — Sir Thomas Browne : Religio Medici, sects. 9, 10, 12 ; 
in Works, vol. ii. pp. 332, 334-5. 

Referring to the " Ultrafidianism " of this learned physician, as Cole- 
ridge expresses it, Archbishop Tillotson, in Ser. 194 (Works, vol. x. 180), 
makes the following very sensible remark : " I know not what some men 
may find in themselves; but I must freely acknowledge that I could never 
yet attain to that bold and hardy degree of faith as to believe any thing for 
this reason, because it was impossible.'* 

I ever did, and ever shall, look upon those apprehensions of God 
to be the truest, whereby we apprehend him to be the most incom- 
prehensible, and that to be the most true of God which seems most 
impossible unto us. Upon this ground, therefore, it is that the mys- 
teries of the gospel, which I am less able to conceive, I think myself 
the more obliged to believe ; especially this mystery of mysteries, the 
Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, which I am so far from being 
able to comprehend, or indeed to apprehend, that I cannot set myself 
seriously to think of it, or to screw up my thoughts a little concerning 
it, but I immediately lose myself as in a trance or ecstasy. That God 
the Father should be one perfect God of himself, God the Son one 
perfect God of himself, and God the Holy Ghost one perfect God of 
himself; and yet that these three should be but one perfect God 
of himself, so that one should be perfectly three, and three perfectly 
one ; that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost should be three, and yet 
but one ; but one, and yet three, — oh heart-amazing, thought-devour- 
ing, unconceivable mystery! Who cannot believe it to be true of 
the glorious Deity ? — Bishop Beyeridge : Private Thoughts on 
Religion, Art. HI. pp. 52-3. 



THE DOGMA OF A TRIUNE GOD IRRATIONAL. 321 

For that any one should be both Father and Son to the same per- 
son [to David], produce himself, be cause and effect too, and so the 
copy give being to its original, seems at first sight so very strange 
and unaccountable, that, were it not to be adored as a mystery, it 
would be exploded as a contradiction. — Dr. It. South : Sermons, 
vol. hi. p. 240. 

The doctrine of the Communication of Properties is as intelligible 
as if one were to say that there is a circle which is so united with 
a triangle, that the circle has the properties of the triangle, and .he 
triangle those of the circle. — Le Clerc, apud Rev. J. H. Thom. 

The revelation of it [the blessed Trinity] is, ... I conceive, an 
absolute demonstration of its truth ; because it is a mystery which by 
nature could not possibly have entered into the imagination of man. 
. . . Faith in these [mysteries] is more acceptable to God than faith 
in less abstruse articles of our religion, because it pays that honor 
which is due to his testimony ; and the more seemingly incredible the 
matter is which we believe, the more respect we show to the relater 
of it. — Dr. Edw. Young : Letter on Infidelity ; Works, vol. ii. p. 14. 

Objections have likewise been raised to the divine authority of this 
religion from the incredibility of some of its doctrines, particularly of 
those concerning the Trinity, and atonement for sin by the sufferings 
and death of Christ ; the one contradicting all the principles of human 
reason, and the other all our ideas of divine justice. . . . That three 
Beings should be one Being, is a proposition which certainly contra- 
dicts reason, that is, our reason ; but it does not from thence follow, 
that it cannot be true ; for there are many propositions which contra- 
dict our reason, and yet are demonstrably true. — Soame Jenyns : 
View of the Internal. Evidence of the Christ Religion, pp. 134-5. 

If, as we believe, a Triune God and other kindred doctrines were not 
taught by Jesns and his apostles, one of the strongest arguments for the 
rejection of Christianity would be annihilated ; and our holy religion, when 
found to be perfectly compatible with the highest reason, would draw the 
respect, if not the unqualified assent and submission, of every thoughtful 
and inquiring mind. 

In this awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, 
and Faith herself is half confounded, was the grace of God to man at 
length manifested. — Bishop Hukd : Sermons preached at Lincoln's 
Inn, vol. ii. (Sermon 17), p. 287. 

Bishop Hurd here refers to the incarnation of what he calls " the second 
person in the glorious Trinity, 1 ' and to the atonement made by him. 



322 THE DOGMA OF A TRIUNE GOD IRRATIONAL. 

When it is proposed to me to affirm, that " in the unity of the 
Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eter- 
nity, — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," — I have difficulty 
enough ! my understanding is involved in perplexity, my conceptions 
bewildered in the thickest darkness. I pause, I hesitate ; I ask what 
necessity there is for making such a declaration. . . . But does not 
this confound all our conceptions, and make us use words without 
meaning ? I think it does. I profess and proclaim my confusion in 
the most unequivocal manner : I make it an essential part of my 
declaration. Did I pretend to understand what I say, 1 might be a 
Tritheist or an Infidel ; but I could not both worship the one true 
God, and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be Lord of all. ... It might 
tend to promote moderation, and, in the end, agreement, if we were 
industrious on all occasions to represent our own doctrine [respecting 
the Trinity] as wholly unintelligible. — Dr. John Hey : Lectures in 
Divinity, vol. ii. pp. 249, 251, 253. 

" Theology teaches," says a passage in a Protestant work, " that 
there is in God one Essence, two Processions, three Persons, four 
Relations, five Notions, and the Circumincession, which the Greeks 
call Perichoresis." .... What follows is still more to my purpose ; 
but I cannot bring myself to transcribe any further. — Archbishop 
Whately : Elements of Logic ; Append. I., Art. " Person." 

My belief in the Trinity is based on the authority of the church : 
no other authority is sufficient. I will now show from reason, that 
the Athanasian Creed and Scripture are opposed to one another. The 
doctrine of the Trinity is this : There is one God in three persons, — 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father is God, the Son is God, 
and the Holy Ghost is God. Mind, the Father is one person, the 
Son is another person, and the Holy Ghost is another person. Now, 
according to every principle of mathematics, arithmetic, human wis- 
dom, and policy, there must be three Gods ; for no one could say that 
there are three persons and three Gods, and yet only one God. . . . 
The Athanasian Creed gives the universal opinion of the church, that 
the Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Ghost 
uncreated ; that they existed from all eternity. Now, the Son wau 
born of the Father, and, if born, must have been created. The Holy 
Ghost must also have been created, as he came from the Father and 
the Son. And, if so, there must have been a time when they did not 
exist. If they did not exist, they must have been created ; and there- 
fore to assert that they are eternal is absurd, and bangs nonsense. 



THE DOGMA OF A TRIUNE GOD IRRATIONAL. 323 

Each has his distinct personality : each has his own essence. How, 
then, can they be one Eternal ? How can they be all God ? Absurd. 
The Athanasian Creed says that they are three persons, and still only 
;>ne God. Absurd ; extravagant ! This is rejected by Arians, Soci- 
nians, Presbyterians, and every man following human reason. The 
Creed further says that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God and 
of man, " not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking 
of the manhood into God." Now, I ask you, did the Divinity absorb 
the manhood ? He could not be, at the same time, one person and 
two persons. I have now proved the Trinity opposed to human rea- 
son. — James Hughes, Roman Catholic Priest, of Newport Pratt, 
county Mayo; apud Bible Christian for January, 1839. 

It would be an ungrateful task to collect, and to present to the reader, 
other definitions and descriptions of the dogma of a Triune God, and other 
admissions of its unintelligibility or its contradictions ; for, so far as we can 
judge, they are all more or less obscure, inconsistent, or absurd. Enough, 
then, of such jargon; enough of a confusion which could not well be 
44 worse confounded," — of " a counsel darkened by words without" the 
faintest ray of " knowledge." Let those who choose, " pose their appre- 
hension with the involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, and the 
Incarnation " of a " God the Son; " let those who will, " honor," or as we 
would say dishonor, the bounteous Author of their intellect by believing, if 
they can believe, what is " absurd and incredible; " let them reason, or rather 
abuse their rational faculties by arguing, in favor of the propriety and the 
duty of " prostrating their understandings " before dogmas which are " im- 
possible;" let one, speaking of "the mystery of mysteries, the Trinity in 
Unity and Unity in Trinity," exclaim, in the language of superlative non- 
sense, luminosissimcB Tenebrw ! and another acknowledge that at the 
scheme of redemption, of which this is deemed an essential part, " Reason 
stands aghast, and Faith herself is half confounded." But for us, sickened 
by such representations and such confessions, — for us, with a Bible in our 
hands which says nought of divine pluralities, of holy trinities, of ineffable 
generations and processions, of tripersonal modes and developments; of 
distinct hypostases, persons, or subsistences; of infinite minds, spirits, or 
beings ; of triune substances, essences, or natures ; of perichoreses, circum 
incessions, or inexistences and permeations, — for us, when it is contrasted 
with the daring speculations of Platonic and Christian Trinitarians, there is 
a sacred and an inexpressible charm in one plain, simple precept, or in one 
clear and heavenly aspiration, from the lips of the great Master, " When ye 
*»ray, say, Our Father, hallowed be thy name;" " Father, . . . this is life 
eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
whom tlwu hast sent ; " or in one out of the many explicit statements of 
Paul's belief, " There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, 
the man Christ Jesus." 



3 2 -A PATIUSTICAL AND SCHOLASTIC TERMS. 



SECT. III. — THEOLOGICAL TERMS EITHER UNINTELLIGIBLE AND USE- 
LESS, IF NOT PERNICIOUS ; OR EXPRESSIVE OF IDEAS, AND SHOULD 
THEREFORE BE CLEARLY DEFINED. 

What is not intelligible is either untrue or useless. — Bunsen. 

I wonder most, that men, when they have amused and puzzled themselves and others 
with hard words, should call this explaining things. — Tillotson. 

The purity of Scripture ought to be preserved, and man should 
not presume to speak in his own language more perfectly than God 
spoke in his. . . . Who understands things belonging to God better 
than God himself ? Let wretched mortals give honor to God, and 
either confess that they do not understand his words, or cease to 
profane them with their own new and peculiar expressions ; so that 
divine wisdom, lovely in its genuine form, may remain to us pure. — 
I\Iartin Luther : Confid. Rat Latom., torn. ii. fol. 240. 

In these remarks, the great German Reformer, taking for granted the 
plenary inspiration of the Bible, refers in particular to the term homoousion, 
" consubstantial," the introduction of which into the nomenclature of Chris- 
tian theology has been productive of so much evil. 

St. Paul left an excellent precept to the church to avoid pro/anas 
vocum novitates, " the profane newness of words ; " that is, it is fit 
that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be preached and 
taught in the words of the Scripture, and with that simplicity, open- 
ness, easiness, and candor, and not with new and unhallowed words, 
such as that of " Transubstantiation." — Jeremy Taylor : A Dis- 
suasive from Popery, part ii. book ii. § 3. 

Referring to this passage in his " Notes'* (Works, vol. v. p. 244), Cole^ 
ridge asks, " Are not, then, Trinity, Triunity, Hypostasis, Perichoresifc, 
Diphysis, and others, excluded? " — a question which we would venture to 
answer, by asserting that no injury would have been done to the gospel, if 
unscriptural terms had never been adopted in the formulas of the church. 

Great difficulty, I acknowledge, there is in the explication of it 
[the doctrine of the Trinity], in which the farther we go beyond what 
God has thought fit to reveal to us in Scripture concerning it, the 
more we are entangled ; and that which men are pleased to call an 
explaining of it, d°es, in my apprehension, often make it more obscure, 
that is, less plain than it was before \ which does not so very well agree 



PATRISTICAL AND SCHOLASTIC TERMS. 325 

with a pretence of explication It cannot be denied but that 

these speculative and very acute men [the schoolmen], who wrought 
a great part of their divinity out of their own brains, as spiders do 
cobwebs out of their own bowels, have started a thousand subtleties 
about this mystery, such as no Christian is bound to trouble his head 
withal ; much less is it necessary for him to understand those niceties 
which we may reasonably presume that they who talk of them did 
themselves never thoroughly understand, and least of all is it neces- 
sary to believe them A man may be " a barbarian " that 

speaks to people in unknown phrases and metaphors, as well as " he 
that speaks in an unknown tongue ; " and the very same reason that 
obligeth us to put the Scripture into a known language doth oblige 
men to explain the doctrines contained in it by such phrases and 
metaphors as are known and used in that language. ... If men would 
but content themselves with those plain and simple descriptions which 
the Scripture gives us of faith, there could not be any great difference 
about it. — Archbishop Tillotson : Sermons 44, 48 ; in Works, 
voL iii. pp. 215, 288, and vol. xi. p. 259. 

"Essence" and "hypostasis," "substance," "subsistence," "per- 
son," " existence," " nature," &c, are terms very differently used by 
Greek and Latin fathers in this dispute, and have very much obscured 
this doctrine, instead of explaining it. — Dr. William Sherlock : 
Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, sect. v. p. 101. 

We can believe a thing no further than we understand the terms 
in which it is proposed to us ; for faith concerns only the truth and 
falsehood of propositions, and the terms of which a proposition con- 
sists must be first understood before we can pronounce any thing 
concerning the truth or falsehood of it ; which is nothing else but the 
agreement or disagreement of its terms, or the ideas expressed by 
them. If I have no knowledge at all of the meaning of the terms 
used in a proposition, I cannot exercise any act of my understanding 
about it ; I cannot say I believe or disbelieve any thing ; . . . and if I 
have but a general, confused notion of the terms, I can only give 

a general, confused assent to the proposition From whence it 

follows, that terms and simple ideas must be clearly and distinctly 
understood first, before we can believe any thing particular of the 
respects and relations they bear to one another, which is the only 

proper object of faith Whatever words we use, whether 

" person," " hypostasis," or any other we can invent, they all signify 
the same thing ; that is, some kind of distinction we do not under- 

28 



326 PATRISTIC AL AND SCHOLASTIC TERMS. 

stand. And we may rack our thoughts, tire our imaginations, and 
break all the fibres of our brain, and yet never be able to deliver our- 
selves clearer. — Dr. Robert South : Considerations concerning the 
Trinity, pp. 14-16, 33-4. 

Indeed, let any proposition be delivered to us as coming from God 
or from man, we can believe it no farther than we understand it j and 
therefore, if we do not understand it at all, we cannot believe it at all, 
— I mean, explicitly, — but only be persuaded that it contains some 
truth or other, though we know not what. Again : were any doctrine 
laid down which we clearly saw to be self-contradictory, or otherwise 
absurd, that could never be an object of our faith ; for there is no 
possibility of admitting, upon any authority, a thing for true which 
we evidently perceive to be false. Nor would calling such doctrines 
" mysterious " mend the matter in the least. For, indeed, there is 
no mystery in them : they are as plain as any in nature, as plainly 
contrary to truth as any thing else is agreeable to it. — Archbishop 
Secker : Sermons, No. XVIII. vol. iv. p. 384. 

Several of the early disputes . . . took their rise from the affecta- 
tion of employing high-sounding titles. Hence, in a great measure, 
the noise that was raised about the terms dfioovoiog, dfiotovoioc, vnooraou;, 
VTzoGTanKo^ ^eotokoq, XpiGTOTOKoc, when first introduced into their theo- 
logy. To these terms the Latins had no single words properly cor- 
responding. Augustine, one of the most eminent of the Latin 
fathers, seems to have been so sensible of this defect in discoursing 
on the Trinity (1. v. c. 9), that he apologizes for his language, and 
considers the expressions he employs as only preferable to a total 
silence on the subject, but not as equally adapted with the Greek. 
" Dictum est," says he, " tres personae, non ut illud diceretur, sed ne 
taceretur." The truth is, so little do the Greek terms and the Latin, 
on this subject, correspond, that, if you regard the ordinary significa- 
tions of the words (and I know not whence else we should get a 
meaning to them), the doctrine of the East was one, and that of the 
West was another, on this article. In the East, it was " one essence 
and three substances," fiia ovoia, Tpelg vkoctLguq : in the West, it was 
"one substance and three persons," una substantia, tres persona. 
The phrases rpia irpoGuna in Greek, tres substantice in Latin, would 
both, I imagine, have been exposed to the charge of Tritheism. But 
which of the two, the Greek or the Latin phraseology, was most suited 
to the truth of the case, is a question I will not take upon me to 
determine. I shall only say of Augustine's apology, that it is a ver) 



PATRISTICAL AND SCHOLASTIC TERMS. 327 

odd one, and seems to imply, that, on subjects above our comprehen- 
sion, and to which all human elocution is inadequate, it is better to 
speak nonsense than be silent. It were to be wished, that, on topics 
so sublime, men had thought proper to confine themselves to the sim- 
ple but majestic diction of the Sacred Scriptures Religion, the 

Christian religion in particular, has always been understood to require 
faith in its principles ; and faith in principles requires some degree of 
knowledge or apprehension of those principles. If total ignorance 
should prevail, how could men be said to believe that of which they 
knew nothing ? The schoolmen have devised an excellent succeda- 
neum to supply the place of real belief; which necessarily implies that 
the thing believed is, in some sort, apprehended by the understanding. 
This succedaneum they have denominated "implicit faith;" an in- 
genious method of reconciling things incompatible, to believe every 
thing, and to know nothing, not so much as the terms of the proposi- 
tions which we believe. — Dr. George Campbell : Ecclesiastical 
History, Lect 14 and 23 ; or pp. 242-3, 383. 

Nothing affords such an endless subject of debate as a doctrine 
above the reach of human understanding, and expressed in the 
ambiguous and improper terms of human language, such as "per- 
sons," " generation," " substance," &c, which, in this controversy, 
either convey no ideas at all, or false ones. ... It is difficult to con 
ceive what our faith gains by being entertained with a certain number 
of sounds. If a Chinese should explain a term of his language which 
I did not understand, by another term which he knew beforehand 
that I understood as little, his conduct would be justly considered 
as an insult against the rules of conversation and good breeding ; and 
I think it is an equal violation of the equitable principles of candid 
controversy to offer, as illustrations, propositions or terms that are 
as unintelligible and obscure as the thing to be illustrated. — Dr. 
Archibald Maclaine : Note in his Translation of Moshehrts 
Ecclesiastical History, cent, xviii. § 27. 

The language of Scripture is the language of common sense, — the 
piain, artless language of nature. Why should writers adopt such 
language as renders their meaning obscure; and not only obscure, 
but unintelligible ; and not only unintelligible, but utterly lost in the 
strangeness of their phraseology ? — Dr. Timothy Dwight ; apud 
Morgridge's True Believer's Defence, p. 18. 

The superabundance of phrases appropriated by some pious authors 
to the subject of religion, and never applied to any other purpose, has 



328 PATRISTICAL AND SCHOLASTIC TERMS. 

not only the effect of disgusting persons of taste, but of obscuring 
religion itself. As they are seldom denned, and never exchanged for 
equivalent words, they pass current without being understood. They 
are not the vehicle — they are the substitute — of thought. Among 
a certain description of Christians, they become by degrees to be 
regarded with a mystic awe ; insomuch that, if a writer expressed the 
very same ideas in different phrases, he would be condemned as a 
heretic. To quit the magical circle of words, in which many Chris- 
tians suffer themselves to be confined, excites as great a clamor as the 
boldest innovation in sentiment. Controversies, which have been 
agitated with much warmth, might often have been amicably adjusted, 
or even finally decided, could the respective partisans have been pre- 
vailed on to lay aside their predilection for phrases, and honestly 
resolve to examine their real import. In defiance of the dictates of 
candor and good sense, these have been obstinately retained, and have 
usually been the refuge of ignorance, the apple of discord, and the 
watchwords of religious hostility. — Robert Hall : Review of 
Foster's Essays ; in Works, vol. ii. p. 243. 

I may understand many things which I do not believe; but I 
cannot believe any thing which I do not understand, unless it be 
something addressed merely to my senses, and not to my thinking 
faculty. A man may with great propriety say, "I understand the 
Cartesian system of vortices, though I don't believe in it ; " but it is 
absolutely impossible for him to believe in that system without know- 
ing what it is. A man may believe in the ability of the maker of a 
system, without understanding it ; but he cannot believe in the system 
itself, without understanding it. — Thomas Erskine, Esq., Advocate : 
Essay on Faith, p. 25. 

Words which we do not understand are like words spoken in an 
unknown language : we can neither believe them nor disbelieve them, 
because we do not know what they say. For instance, I repeat these 
words, rovg Ttavrag rjiiag (j>avepo)d?jvaL del efxirpocdev rov ^ruiaroq rov Xpcawv. 
Now, if I were to ask, " Do you believe these words ? " is it not mani- 
fest that all of you who know Greek enough to understand them may 
also believe them ; but, of those who do not know Greek, not a single 
person can yet believe them ? They are as words spoken to the air. 
But when I add that these words mean, " We must all stand before 
the judgment-seat of Christ," now we can all believe them, because 
we can all understand them. — Br. Thomas Arnold : Sermons on 
the Christian Life, pp. 291-2. 



PATRISTICAL AND SCHOLASTIC TERMS. 329 

The danger of being not merely not understood, but misunderstood, 
should be guarded against most sedulously by all who wish not only 
to keep clear of error, but to inculcate important truth, — by seldom 
or never employing this ambiguous word [" person "] without some 
explanation or caution. For if we employ, without any such care, 
terms which we must be sensible are likely to mislead, at least the 
unlearned and the unthinking, we cannot stand acquitted on the plea 

of not having directly inculcated error To claim an uninquiring 

assent to expressions of man's framing (however judiciously framed), 
without even an attempt to ascertain their meaning, is to fall into one 
of the worst errors of the Romanists. — Archbishop Whately : 
Elements of Logic, Append. L, art. " Person." 

To the admirers of this liberal-minded primate, it would have been gra- 
tifying, had he stated, a little more clearly and candidly than he has done, 
his own conceptions of the theological import of the word "person;" and 
had he told them, whether, when speaking of the three persons in the God- 
head, he means three names, relations, offices, characters; three somewhats; 
or three distinct intelligent agents. The tendency of the article, however, 
seems to us favorable to some form or other of the Sabellian theory. 

Not only have professed theologians, but private Christians, been 
imposed on by the specious religion of terms of theology j and have 
betrayed often a fond zeal in the service of their idol-abstractions, not 
unlike that of the people of old, who are said to have beaten the air 
with spears to expel the foreign gods by whom their country was 
supposed to be occupied. For my part, I believe it to be one of the 
chief causes of the infidelity which prevails among speculative men. 

The schoolmen are express in pointing out, after Augustine, 

that the term [persona] was adopted, not to express any definite 
notion, but to make some answer where silence would have been 
better ; to denote, by some term, what has no suitable word to express 
it. "Tres nescio quid" is the expression of Anselm, in his "Mono- 
logium." — Bishop Hampden : Bampton Lectures, pp. 55-6, 133. 



By the concessions of eminent Trinitarians, we have, in this section, 
exhibited a very obvious though an often-neglected principle, that, especially 
in matters of religion, no phraseology should be adopted which does not 
express ideas or sentiments capable of being understood. With regard, then, 
to the unscriptural words used to set forth the doctrine of the Trinity, there 
is only one alternative, — either to acknowledge that they have no import, 
and should never be employed ; or to allow that they are representatives of 
ideas, an 1 should be clearly defined or explained. According to the former 

28* 






330 PATRISTICAL AND SCHOLASTIC TERMS. 

admission, the dogma of a tripersonal Deity is barren, unintelligible, un- 
meaning; consisting of words devoid of thoughts, or involved in sounds 
without any signification. Agreeably to the latter, in keeping with which 
" hypostasis," " person," and other terms, are explained so as to be under 
stood, the same dogma is, as we have previously shown, resolvable only into 
one of two principles, — Tritheism or Sabellianism; three Gods or three 
relations; a Trinity of eternal beings, either equal or unequal, either self- 
existent, or, as respects two of the agents, derived and dependent, — or a 
sort of Unitarianism, which, while adhering essentially to the tenet of God's 
oneness, would annihilate, by its mysticism, the clear distinction made 
everywhere in the Christian Scriptures between the universal Father and 
his only-begotten or best-beloved Son. 

We would not oppugn the motives of our Trinitarian brethren, or ques- 
tion the sincerity of their professions. With all her absurdities, Orthodoxy 
has held in her ranks many great and excellent men, some of them an honor 
to their race. But the wisest and the best often deceive themselves ; and 
there are few who do not feel easily persuaded of the truth of opinions, 
which, though inconsistent with reason, are hallowed by tradition or by 
early and pious associations. An assent may therefore be given to proposi- 
tions expressing the dogma of a Triune God, from a feeling, that, though 
unintelligible or contrary to common sense, they may be true; but assuredly 
there can be no real, unqualified, rational conviction of their truth. If a man 
says that there are three somewhats, distinctions, or diversities in one God, 
but has no conception of the meaning of the terms employed, he cannot be 
said to believe this proposition, any more than he could be said to believe it, 
if, without previous concert, he heard it announced in a language of which 
he was ignorant. If he states that there are three intelligent, infinite, equal 
persons in one infinite, intelligent, supreme being, and is unable, as we have 
proved, to attach any other signification to the word " person," with its 
qualifying epithets, than to the word " being," he virtually affirms that three 
beings are only one, — which is an absurdity. And if, varying again the 
expression, he asserts that there are three names, relatives, characters, or 
impersonations in the one God, this he may indeed believe; but, so soon as 
he declares that one of these names, relatives, characters, or impersonations, 
addressed the others, or sent them into the world, either as equals or subor- 
dinates in the divine nature, he employs terms which are either nonsensical, 
or have no meaning. 

Having thus, by the aid of its friends, shown that the Trinity in Unity, 
or Unity in Trinity, is a doctrine opposed to human reason, we proceed, in 
the next chapter, to use weapons drawn from the same armory, with the view 
of demolishing the position, that Trinitarianism is contained in the records of 
divine revelation. 



331 



CHAPTER VI. 

11IE TRINITY IN UNITY, AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST, NOT 
DOCTRINES OF REVELATION. 



SECT. L, — THE TERMS " TRINITY, TRIUNE GOD, PERSON, HYPOSTASIS, 
HOMOOUSION," ETC., UNSCRIPTURAL AND IMPROPER. 

All mysteries in the world are wholly supported by hard and unintelligible terms 

Sir Thomas Browne. 

We ought to believe that there are three persons and one essence 
in the Deity, — God the Father unbegotten, God the Son consubstan- 
tial with the Father, and God the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. 
But, though you attentively .peruse the whole of Scripture, you will 
never find these sublime and remarkable words, " Three persons ; 
one essence ; unbegotten ; consubstantial ; proceeding from both." — 
Cochl^us ; apud Sandium, pp. 4, 5. 

The word " Trinity " is never found hi the Divine Records, but is 
only of human invention, and therefore sounds altogether frigidly 
(frigide). Far better would it be to say "God" than "Trinity." 
There is no reason for objecting to me, that the word " ho- 
rn oousion " was made use of in opposition to the Arians. It was not 
received by many of the most eminent men, Jerome himself having 
wished to abolish the term ; and, on this account, they did not escape 
peril. . . . But, though from my soul I abhor the word " homoousion," 
and am unwilling to employ it, I shall not therefore be a heretic. — 
Martin Luther : Postil. Major., fol. 282 ; Confut. Rat Latom., 
torn. ii. fol. 240. 

The word " consubstantial " (pfioovoiog), I confess, is not to be found 
in the Scripture. — John Calvin : Institutes, book iv. chap. viii. 16. 

The phrase, " Holy Trinity, one God," is dangerous and impro- 
per. — Lambert Daneau : Resp. ad Genebrard. cap. iii. ; Opuscida, 
p. 1327 



332 TRINITARIAN TERMS UNSCRIPTURAL. 

The words " Trinity," " homoousion,"" hypostasis," " procession," &c» 
(which, for the better expressing of the catholic souse, they were forced 
to use), were not expressly to be found in the Holy Scriptures. — 
Bp. SANDERSON: Jld Clerum, a Sermon preached Oct. 8, 1641, p. 6. 

The words " Trinity," " person," " homoousion," and others of a 
similar kind, besides being ambiguous, . . . never occur in the Scrip- 
tures. — PHILIP Limborch : Theologia Christiana, lib. vii. cap. 21, 
§13. 

This doctrine [that from the eternal essence there proceeded, from 
all eternity, two other essences, the Son and the Holy Spirit] cannot 
be expressed in an intelligible manner in the phrase, style, and dialect 
of the Holy Scripture alone ; which may give no small cause of sus- 
picion, were there no other reason besides, that it is not the doctrine 
of the apostles. There is no authority upon earth that can oblige us 
to substitute any expressions invented since the time of the apostles 
to those that these holy and inspired men themselves used. — John 
Le Clerc : Abstract of Dr. Clarke's Polemical Writings, p. 126. 

In p. 113, Le Clero says that lie prefers to Dr. Samuel Clarke's views 
the commoD opinion as to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 

It must be allowed that there is no such proposition as this, that 
" one and the same God is three different persons," formally and in 
terms, to be (bund in the Sacred Writings, either of the Old or New 
Testament ; neither is it pretended that there is any word of the same 
signification or importance with the word "Trinity," used in Scripture, 
with relation to God. — J )r. Robert South : Considerations con- 
cerning the Trinity, p. 38. 

The title of " Mother of God," applied to the Virgin Mary, is not 
perhaps so innocent as Dr. Mosheim takes it to be. . . . The invention 
and use of such mysterious terms as have no place in Scripture are 

undoubtedly pernicious to true religion THEOPHILUS of An- 

tioch [who died about the year 181, was] the first who made use of 
the word "Trinity" to express the distinction of what divines call 
persons in the Godhead. The Christian church is very little obliged 
to him for his invention. The use of this and other unscriptural 
terms, to which men attach either no ideas or false ones, has wounded 
charily and peace, without promoting truth and knowledge. It has 
produced heresies of the worst kind. — 1)R. ARCHIBALD MACLAINE : 
Note in his Translation of Mosheim 1 3 Ecclesiastical History, cent. v. 
part ii. chap. 5, § 9 ; and Chronological Tables, cent. ii. 



TRINITARIAN TERMS UNSCRIPTURAL. 333 

It 13 my firm conviction, that, before every mixed or unlearned 
audience, the plain duties of temperance, modesty, diligence, resigna- 
tion, honesty, veracity, humility, placability, and piety, illustrated again 
and again by the dignified phraseology of Scripture, and enforced by 
the awful sanctions of future rewards and punishments, as prepared 
by that Being who " spake as never man spake," are more proper for 
the pulpit than topics known under the technical terms of consub- 
stantiality specific and numerical, hypostatic union, eternal filiation, 
eternal procession, actual regeneration by special grace, possible justi- 
fication by faith only, supralapsarianism and sublapsarianism, and other 
phrases, familiar, I grant, to the polemic, dear to the bigot, and ani- 
mating to the multitude, but uncouth to the ear and unedifying to 
the heart of many well-informed and well-disposed Christians. — Dr. 
Samuel Parr : Works, vol. v. pp. 118-19. 

This version [" the express image of his person" Heb. i. 3] has 
given rise to the opinion, that the word " person," as applied to the 
Trinity, is scriptural. The Greek word vnooraotc, however, signifies 
substance or essence. It is true that in ecclesiastical Greek it is also 
used to denote person ; but this signification had not been given to it 
when the New Testament was written. After the rise of the Arian 
controversy, the word vtvootclolc began to be used for person ; but, at 
an early period, that sense was unknown. The term " person," there- 
fore, is not found in Scripture in the sense in which we usually speak 
of the three persons of the Trinity. — Dr. Samuel Davidson : 
Sawed Hermeneutics, pp. 23-4. 

But this writer approves of the use of the word in its dogmatic sense. 

The name of "purgatory" scarcely requires a passing comment. 
It has, indeed, been made a topic of abuse, on the ground that it is 
not to be found in Scripture. But where is the word " Trinity " to 
be met with ? Where is the word " Incarnation " to be read in Scrip- 
ture ? Where are many other terms, held most sacred and important 
in the Christian religion ? — Cardinal Wiseman : Lectures on the 
Doctrines of Uie CatJvolic Church, vol. ii. p. 50. 

It is admitted also by Erasmus, TiLLOTSOH, Hey, Tomline, and many 
others, that the words and phrases here spoken of do not occur in the Bible. 
But where is the man who would venture to say that they do? Combining 
this fact with what seems equally obvious, that there are no other terms in 
which a Trinity in Unity can be expressed than those which have been 
used by theologians, it will follow that the doctrine itself is not revealed in 
Holy Scripture 



334 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 



bECT. H. — THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD, OR OF THE DEITY OF 
CHRIST, NOT REVEALED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, OR KNOWN TO 
THE JEWS. 

He takes false shadows for true substances. — Shakspearb. 

§ 1. Not revealed in the Old Testament. 

It is evident, that, from the authorities of the Old Testament, 
sufficient and clear proof cannot be drawn either for the Trinity, or 
for a plurality of divine persons. — Bishop Tostat : Op., torn. xii. ; 
De Sand. Trin., p. 14. 

The mystery of the most Holy Trinity had never at any time pene- 
trated the mind, however excellent, or inquisitive as to divine matters ; 
nor could it ; but to the gospel alone the disclosure and preaching of 
that mystery were reserved. . . . That article was not laid down in the 
Old Testament as an object of belief, because the people as yet were 
incapable of receiving it. The unity of God was, however, inculcated 
in the law, in opposition to idolatry ; whence this first command, " Hear, 
O Israel ! the Lord our God is one God," Deut. vi. 4. — Salmeron : 
Comm., torn. i. pp. 20 1-2 ; Prolog, xi. can. xxv. 

The mystery of the most holy Trinity was not yet [at the time of 
Christ] divulged, so that the Jews could expressly believe that he was 
by nature the Son of God, God of God, of one substance, power, and 
glory with God the Father. This doctrine Jesus reserved to himself 
to promulgate ; . . . though he did not at the beginning expressly 
teach it to his disciples, but led them to it by degrees. — Lucas 
Brugensis on John i. 49. 

The doctrine of the Trinity was not propounded expressly to the 
Jews in the Old Testament, because they were incapable of it, &c. — 
Cardinal Bellarmine : De Christo, lib. ii. cap. 6. 

So say also Rupertus Tuitiensis, Galatin, Steuchus Eugubinus, 
Salabert, and other Roman Catholic commentators. 

The glorious mystery of the Trinity came hereby to be unfolded 
more clearly, if not the first discovery made of the three persons 
hereby, there being scarce the footsteps of them distinctly and clearly 
to be seen in the works of the creation or in the law. But now, when 
the gospel came to be revealed, &c. — Dr. Thomas Goodwin : JforJcs, 
voL L part iii. p. 65. 



NOT REVEALED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 335 

I think that it [the doctrine of the Trinity] was a thing not only 
locked up from the researches of reason amongst those that were led 
only by reason, — I mean the Gentiles, — but that it was also con- 
cealed from, or at best but obscurely known by, the Jewish church. 
. . . That God did so [conceal it], the Old Testament, which is the 
great ark and repository of the Jewish religion, seems sufficiently to 
declare ; there being no text in it that plainly and expressly holds 
forth a Trinity of persons in the Godhead. Several texts are, indeed, 
urged for that purpose ; though, whatever they may allude to, they 
seem not yet to be of that force and evidence as to infer what some 
undertake to prove by them ; such as are Gen. i. 1, 26. Isa. vi. 3. 

I conclude that it is very probable that the discovery of this 

mystery was a privilege reserved to bless the times of Christianity 
withal, and that the Jews had either none, or but a very weak and 
confused knowledge of it. — Dr. Robert South : Sermons, vol. iv. 
pp. 296-301. 

Take the Old Testament without the New, and it must be confessed 
that it will not be easy to prove this article [that of the Trinity] from 
it. — Bishop Burnet : Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. i. 
p. 43. 

No one can take from the Jews those traditions of the Trinity 
which the Holy Spirit hath scattered here and there in the Scripture. 
It was by these that God prepared the minds of men to receive that 
incomprehensible mystery. At the same time, he conducted the 
people slowly, step by step ; and the knowledge of that great truth 
was proportioned to an economy covered with shadows and figures. 
If, in spite of the light which the evangelists have shed upon it, and 
the accomplishment of prophecy, which of all commentaries is the 
clearest and most intelligible, we still can with difficulty discover 
the Trinity in the Old Testament, one may presume that the Jews 
paid but little attention to it, and that, with all their research, they 
had but a very obscure perception of this dogma. . . . There is reason 
to fear, that these men, who do not see the Trinity in the New Tes- 
tament, where it is clearly expressed, will have still greater difficulty 
in discovering it in the Old, where it is only obscurely intimated. — 
Basnage : History of the Jews, b. iv. c. 5 ; apud Blomfield's Dissert, 
upon the Traditional Knowledge of a Promised Redeemer, p. 168. 

There are no passages in the Old Testament which indicate a Tri- 
nity [of persons in the Godhead]. — Doderlein : Instituiio Th^ologi 
Ckristiani, § 113. 



336 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

As no passage in the Old Testament satisfactorily proves that the 
writers had any knowledge of three persons in the Godhead, and as it 
is not at all probable that among the Hebrews, who on various occa- 
sions manifested a proneness towards Polytheism, the doctrine of the 
Trinity, such as is exhibited in the Christian church, could be rightly 
understood, or be imparted without exerting an injurious effect on the 
worship of the one true God, I am of opinion that, &c. — H. A. 
Schott : Opuscula, torn. ii. p. 56. 

Calixtus gave occasion for increasing the strife, by a disputation 
on the mystery of the Trinity, which Dr. Jo. Latermann wrote and 
defended under him, in 1645 ; in which it was maintained that the 
doctrine of the Trinity was not made known to the fathers under 
the Old Testament ; and that it was a created angel, and not the Son 
of God, who appeared to the patriarchs. — John R. Schlegel, as 
quoted by Dr. Murdoch in his edition of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. iii. p. 374. 

A disciple of the school of Voltaire might indeed object, that what 
the learned divines at any period in the history of the church did not 
know, was at all events known to the Holy Ghost, and that he might 
have taught it to them. To which question I would only reply by 
asking, Why did the same Spirit, who spake by the mouth of the 
prophets under the old covenant, merely declare the unity of the God- 
head, and not the Trinity, by the mouth of Moses, to the chosen 
people ? The answer to this question will probably refer, on the one 
hand, to the plan of the Divine Wisdom for the education of the 
Jewish people, and, on the other hand, to the Polytheism of the ancient 
world, which made such a strict opposition necessary. — Guenther, 
as quoted in Archd. Hare's Mission of the Comforter, vol. ii. p. 432. 

I do not say that you will find the doctrine [of the Trinity], which 
we have been proclaiming to-day, in this chapter [Ezek. i.]. I do not 
believe that you can. I have not the slightest wish to find it there, 
or to put it there. It would be a shock to all my convictions, if I 
thought that Ezekiel was enunciating a dogma when he professed to 
be recording a vision; or that the mystery, which, as the church 
teaches by the order of her services, could not be revealed till Christ 
was glorified and the Spirit given, was already made known to the 
prophet as he sat among the captives by the river Chebar. I cannot 
say how much mischief seems to me to be done, when, instead of 
striving to follow strictly the actual statements of the Old-Testament 
writers, we insist upon wringing out of texts or symbols, which we 



NOT REVEALED IX THE OLD TESTAMENT. 337 

have moulded according to our fancy, the proof of some New-Tes- 
tament revelation. . . . Ezekiel had been taught upon his mother's 
knees the words, " Hear, O Israel ! the Lord thy God is one Lord." — 
F. D. Maurice : Prophets and Kings, pp. 429-30. 

[1] Prior to this moment [of the incarnation of the Logos], there 
has been no appearance of Trinity in the revelations God has made of 
his being ; but just here, — whether as resulting from the incarnation, 
or as implied in it, we are not informed, — a threefold personality or 

impersonation of God begins to offer itself to view The word 

" spirit" had been used before, as in reference to the agency of God, 
but only in a remoter and more tropical sense, as the word " Father " 
had been : the conception of a divine personality or impersonation, 
called the Holy Spirit, was unknown. We may imagine otherwise in 
one or two cases, as when David prays, " Take not thy holy spirit from 

me," but, I think, without any sufficient reason [2] The Old 

Testament . . . not only reveals oneness, leaving the matter of three- 
ness to be revealed afterward, as some might imagine, but it so reveals 
the onaness as to exclude any suspicion or thought of threeness ; and 
so that every pious Jew, between Abraham and Christ, would have 
insisted on a unity of person in the God of their worship, opposed to 
every conception of threeness ; and would have referred, without hesi- 
tation, to Moses and the prophets for his proofs. — Dr. Horace 
Bushxell. 

The passages numbered [1] are quoted from " God in Christ," pp. 147- 8, 
172; that numbered [2] is from " Christ in Theology," pp. 165-6. 

We have seen the full and explicit testimonies given to the unity 
and personality of the Deity. . . . Respecting the divine nature as 
involving a Trinity of persons, though it may be implied or dimly 
intimated, no declaration is made. This is a distinctive doctrine of 
the New Testament. The fact that God existed as Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, is not co-eval with its enunciation ; nor is the knowledge 
of this fact necessarily connected with any acts of the Divine Being 
which imply such a peculiarity in his essence. ... To our minds, 
already enlarged with other views of the divine economy, it may be 
easy to perceive, that God, in many of his interpositions before the 
advent of Christ, did still communicate with men in the person of his 
Son, or in the person of the Holy Ghost. Is there decisive evidence 
that the fact was recognized ? Does the Old Testament contain proof 
that the people of God had the conception of a Trinity in the divine 
nature ? . . . If God had been declared then as existing as Father, 

29 



338 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

Son, and Holy Ghost ; if it had been said, " In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," . . . 
how could it have been possible, with the crude and uncultivated 
minds of the age, already accustomed to the idea of a multitude of 
gods, to have stopped short of the conclusion, that the Father was th* 
true God, and that the Word was another true God ? ... It is not 
uncommon to assume that the Holy Spirit and the Divine Saviour are 
both revealed in the Old Testament. . . . We understand it as th* 
third person of the Holy Trinity. The usage in the Old Testament 
does not necessarily imply such a knowledge. ... It was either a name 
of God himself, not indicating any peculiarity in his nature, or the 
expression of the divine energy as it produced results in the material 
world, or enlightened and directed the human mind. ... In like man- 
ner, the Son of God was not known in his mysterious unity with the 
Father. . . . However clear it may be to our minds, that many of these 
passages [those which contain express allusions to him] are consistent 
with the absolute Divinity of Christ and of his co-equality with the 
Father, it is by no means evident that they conveyed such an idea to 
the Jews. . . . The Hebrew Scriptures, read in their independent 
obscurity, and without the solvent for their almost enigmatical intima- 
tions which is furnished by the New, would scarcely enable the most 
sanguine mind to discover in the promised one the fulness of the 
Godhead. Certain it is, that no decisive facts can be adduced to show 
that the Hebrews ever obtained from their Scriptures a well-defined 
spiritual idea of the complete character of Jesus, or were led to expect 
him as a king possessing the attributes and enjoying the throne with 
God himself. . . . Nowhere is it indicated, in language sufficiently 
exact to convey the idea definitely, that the Messiah was really the 
God of the Jews, or the Son of God, equal in all divine attributes with 
the Father. It is quite certain, that, when Christ appeared, even 
those who knew him most intimately were not prepared to appreciate 
him in this exalted and mysterious character. — Dr. Seth Sweetser, 
in Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1854; vol. xi. pp. 97-101. 



Taking up, in our next volume, seriatim, all the texts of the Old Testa- 
ment which have been thought to intimate the existence of a divine Trinity 
or plurality, or of what are called the second and third persons in the God- 
head, it will be our object, by the continuous aid of orthodox divines, not 
only to confirm the main sentiment expressed in the extracts just made, but 
to prove that there is not the slightest foundation in tre Jewish Scriptures 
bx the truth of these dogmas. 



UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENT JEWS. 339 

| 2. A Triune God and the Deity of Christ unknown to the 
Ancient Jews. 

The Jews . . . expected a Messiah that would be, not the Son of 
God by his own nature, but only a man like the other prophets, though 
surpassing them in wisdom, virtue, and capacity to obtain and govern 
the whole world. — Philip Melancthon, as quoted by Dr. Cox in 
his Life of Melancthon, p. 120. 

The great mystery of the Trinity, though it be frequently inti- 
mated in the Old Testament, yet it is an hard matter rightly to under- 
stand it without the New ; insomuch that the Jews, though they have 
liad the law above three thousand, and the prophets above two thou- 
sand, years amongst them, yet to this day they could never make this 
an article of faith ; but they, as well as the Mahometans, still assert that 
God is only one in person, as well as nature. — Bishop Beveridge : 
Private Thoughts, part ii. p. 66. 

Very good ; but where, without the previous hypothesis of this doctrine, 
are these intimations to be found ? or, if they did exist, how is it that they 
were never discovered by the Jews ? 

The ancient prophecies give more proofs of our Lord's Divinity 
than is generally thought. . . . The Jews, probably before, most cer- 
tainly after, the incarnation, interpreted these expressions in another 
way. They seem to have been, in a great measure, strangers to the 
doctrine I am explaining, and to have looked for nothing in the Mes- 
siah's person but what was human ; nothing in the deliverance to be 
wrought by him but w r hat was temporal. Their hrst disputes with 
the Christians were not only w r hether Jesus was the Messiah, but 
whether the Messiah was to be more than man ; and therefore it hath 
been an unsuccessful as well as useless attempt to prove this article 
of the Christian faith from some obscure passages of the ancient Rab- 
bins. — Dr. Thos. Mangey : Plain Notions of our Lord's Divinity, 
pp. 8, 9. 

Though the general belief of the Jews at that time [when Jesu& 
was on earth] was, that the Messiah would be a much greater man 
than David, a mighty conqueror, and even a universal monarch, the 
sovereign of the kings of the earth, who was to subdue all nations, 
and render them tributary to the chosen people ; yet they still sup- 
posed him to be a mere man, possessed of no higher nature than 
that which he derived from his earthly progenitors. — Dr. George 
Campbell : T/w Four Gospels, Dissert, vii. part L § 9. 



340 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

To keep them steadfast in the belief of the divine unity and spirit- 
uality, was as much perhaps as was intended by all the revelations of 
speculative doctrines made to the Israelites; nor will this purpose 
appear unworthy of all the means which the Almighty made use of in 
effecting it, whether we consider their usual proneness to idolatry and 
polytheism, or the deleterious effects in practice which have been uni- 
formly found accompanying these errors in belief. This has been 
suggested by an excellent divine as a reason why the doctrine of the 
Trinity, which forms so interesting and essential a part of the orthodox 
creed, was not revealed to the Jews, or at least is not to be so readily 
collected from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, as it is from the 
uniform tenor of the gospel. . . . Had the Jews been taught by Moses, 
as Christians have been since in the gospel, that in the divine essence 
were three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
it is evident, that, circumstanced as they were, this doctrine would 
have quickly been corrupted to sanction the most pernicious errors. . . . 
It is, however, contended by some, that the more learned Jews in later 
times were not unacquainted with this doctrine ; and it is certain that 
Christians, assisted by the light of the gospel, are enabled to collect 
some very strong proofs of it from the writings of Moses and the pro- 
phets. But that the people at large were entirely without the notion 
of a Trinity, is evident enough ; and, in the scheme of the divine nature 
delivered to them, they were not cautioned against confounding the 
persons in the Godhead, lest, from the natural tendency of weak minds, 
they should fall into the opposite extreme of dividing the substance, 
which, according to their moral and intellectual state at the time, would 
have proved to them the far more dangerous delusion. — J. Browne : 
Sermons preaclied at the Lecture founded by John Bampton, pp. 85-8. 

Instead of alleging that the doctrine of the Trinity was not revealed to 
the Jews because it would have led them to idolatrous practices, we should 
be disposed to assign another reason, — that God is not, as Trinitarians say, 
three persons, but, as the united voices of reason and revelation testify, 
only one. 

The opinion of Calixtus [who published, in 1645 and 1649, two 
essays against the notion that the doctrine of a Trinity was to a greater 
or less degree known to the Israelites at the time when the New 
Testament was written, at least that a plurality in the Godhead was 
believed by them] . . . has gradually obtained the approbation of most 
theologians of the present time. ~ G. C. Knapp : Christian Theology* 
6ect. xxxiv. 



UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENT JEWS. 341 

This argument [derived from the apocryphal Book of Enoch dis- 
covered in Abyssinia by James Bruce], in proof that the Jews, before 
the birth of Christ, believed the doctrine of the Trinity, appears to 
me much more important and conclusive than that which has been 
indeed frequently, but to my mind, I confess, not satisfactorily, deduced 
from the philosophical principles of the ancient Cabala. Cabalistical 
theology, I well know, has its aziluth, or emanations of Deity ; but 
these, I am convinced, notwithstanding the persuasions of many Chris- 
tians upon the subject, were at no period ever contemplated by the 
Jews themselves as distinct persons, but merely as distinct energies, 
in the Godhead. Indeed, if the argument has any force at all, it 
is calculated to prove more than its advocates wish ; for it goes to 
demonstrate, that the Jews believed in ten, not in three, personal 
emanations of Deity ; for such is the number of the Sephiroth. Ima- 
gination is always ready to discover resemblances where none in reality 
exist; but sober reasoning can never surely approve the indiscreet 
attempt of representing Christian truth as arrayed in the meretricious 
garb of the Jewish Cabala. That singular, and, to those perhaps who 
penetrate its exterior surface, fascinating system of allegorical subtle- 
ties, has, no doubt, its brighter as well as its darker parts, — its 
true as well as its false allusions; but, instead of reducing its wild 
combinations of opinion to the standard of Scripture, we shall, I am 
persuaded, be less likely to err if we refer them to the ancient and 
predominant philosophy of the East ; from which they seem to have 
originally sprung, and from which they are as inseparable as the sha- 
dow is from its substance. — Archbishop Laurence : Preliminary 
Dissertation on his Translation of the Book of Enoch, pp. liv. — lvi. 
third edition. 

Dr. Laurence thinks that the apocryphal book referred to at the com- 
mencement of the preceding extract was written by a Jew, not many years 
before the birth of Christ; Moses Stuart, that it was composed by an 
oriental Christian Jew, during the latter half of the first century. The 
principal passage on which the archbishop founds his opinion, that the 
ancient Jews believed the doctrine of the Trinity, reads as follows: "He 
[the Elect one] shall call to every power of the heavens, to all the holy above, 
and to the power of God. The Cherubim, the Seraphim, and the Ophanim, 
all the angels of power, and all the angels of the Lords, namely, of the Elect 
one, and of the other Power, who (was) upon earth over the water on that 
day, shall raise their united voice," &c. Chap. lx. 13, 14. But nothing is 
said here of a Trinity of persons in one God, or of the co-equality and con- 
substantiality of " the Elect one " and " the other Power." All that can be 
inferred is, that they were superior to the angels. 

29* 



342 THE DCCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

But even the slightest aspect of a Triune Deity, if there be any in the 
words quoted, is done away with in the following translation of Dr. A. G. 
Hoffman, as cited by Moses Stuart in his work on the Apocalypse, vol. i. 
p. 69 : " Angels of power and all angels of lordships (i.e. who are of superior 
order), and the Elect and the other Powers, who were on earth over the 
water in that day; i.e. superior angels present and assisting at the crea- 
tion." 

We quote another passage (chap. xlvi. 1, 2), which clearly represents the 
" Son of man " as distinct from, and inferior to, " the Ancient of days," or 
" Lord of spirits: " — " Then I inquired of one of the angels, who went with 
me, and who showed me every secret thing, concerning this Son of man; 
who he was ; whence he was ; and why he accompanied the Ancient of days. 
He answered and said unto me, This is the Son of man, to whom righteous- 
ness belongs, with whom righteousness has dwelt, and who will reveal all 
the treasures of that which is concealed ; for the Lord of spirits has chosen 
him, and his portion has surpassed all before the Lord of spirits in everlast- 
ing uprightness." 

It is not at all improbable that some of the learned Jews who resided in 
the East, and had intercourse with the Chaldeans and Persians, may have 
imbibed from them their philosophical notions respecting divine powers and 
intelligences connected with, and dependent on, the Supreme Being. At 
all events, to use the language of Dr. J. Pye Smith (Script. Test., vol. i. 
p. 338), " we have sufficient evidence that the doctrines of religion [in the 
latter portion of the interval between the closing of the Old Testament and 
the general diffusion of Christianity] were corrupted even to the first prin- 
ciples, and that its profession and practice had lost almost every character 
of a reasonable service." But there seems no reason to believe, that the 
great body of the Jews, and particularly those of Palestine, had the faintest 
conception of a Triad of hypostases in the divine nature, or of the Supreme 
Divinity of the expected Messiah. 

I cannot but look upon it as unfortunate, that PiCUS of Mirandola, 
and other writers, should have quoted these cabalistic forgeries [the 
Rabbinical and Talmudical writings] as supporting the Christian doc- 
trines of the Trinity, Incarnation, &c. — Dr. Edward Burton : 
Bampton Lectures, p. 301. 

Is it not monstrous, that, the Jews having, according to WHITAKER 
[in his " Origin of Arianism Disclosed "], fully believed a Trinity, one 
and all, but half a century or less before Trypho, Justin should never 
refer to this general faith ; never reproach Trypho with the present 
opposition to it as a heresy from their own forefathers, even those 
who rejected Christ, or rather Jesus as Christ ? But no : not a single 
objection ever strikes Mr. Whitaker, or appears worthy of an answer. 
The stupidest become authentic ; the most fantastic abstractions of the 
Alexandrine dreamers, substantial realities ! I confess this book has 



UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENT JEWS. 343 

satisfied me how little erudition will gain a man now-a-days the 
reputation of vast learning, if it be only accompanied with dash and 
insolence. — S. T. Coleridge : Literary Remains ; in Works, voL v. 
pp. 455-6. 

Dr. Allix undertakes to prove [in the " Judgment of the Jewish 
Church," " a work " which, Dr. Pye Smith says, is " not remarkable 
for accurate statement or judicious reasoning "], that the Jews, before 
the time of Christ, according to the received expositions of the Old Tes- 
tament, dorived from their fathers, had a notion of a plurality of persons 
in the unit y of the divine essence, and that tins plurality was a Trinity ; 
that, according to the doctrine of the old synagogue, the Jews appre- 
hended the Word as a true and proper person; and held that the 
Word was the Son of God, — that he was the true God, — that he 
was to be Jehovah indeed. I confess that I am not prepared to go to 
the full length of these positions. I think it in the highest degree 
probable . . . that the Jews expected a Messiah who should be a 
sharer in the divine nature, but not one who should be equal with 
God. We cannot easily believe, that even the more enlightened of 
their nation had such a knowledge of the nature of their Christ as we 
derive from the recorded testimony of our Saviour and his apostles ; 
nor, if it be granted that they looked for a divine Redeemer, does it 
necessarily follow that they thought him equal to, much less united 
with, the Supreme God. . . . That they should have expected their 
Messiah to have been very and perfect God, of one substance with the 
Father, is, I think, more than we are warranted in asserting. This 
I believe to have been one of those subhme doctrines which were 
reserved for the fuller disclosure of the great mystery of godliness. 
High and majestic as were the titles which the prophets had apph'ed 
to the Messiah, — titles importing nothing less than his being invested 
with the most striking attributes of the Deity, — yet they were qua- 
lified by many descriptions which implied that he was to be subject to 
the accidents of human nature ; so that, in all likelihood, the Jews 
expected that he who was described in their Scriptures both as Son 
of God and Son of man was to be a divine being, of transcendent 
power and dignity, yet acting with delegated authority, and shining 
with imparted light. — Bishop Blomfield : Dissertation upon the 
Traditional Knowledge of a Promised Redeemer , pp. 96-8. 

In his Preface, p. iv., the learned prelate acknowledges that the Jewish 
commentaries have been corrupted from the impi re fountains of heathen 
philosophy. 



344 THE DOCTRINE OP A TRIUNE GOD 

Nor would such a mythus [as that of the miraculous conception, if 
it were a mythus] have been consistent with Jewish modes of thought. 
. . . Such a fable as the birth of the Messiah from a virgin could have 
arisen anywhere else earlier than among the Jews. Their doctrine 
of the Divine Unity, which placed an impassable gulf between God and 
the world ; their high regard for the marriage-relation, which led them 
to abhor unwedded life ; and, above all, their full persuasion that the 
Messiah was to be an ordinary man, undistinguished by any thing 
supernatural, and not to be endowed with divine power, before the 
time of his solemn consecration to the Messiahship, — all conspired 
to render such an invention impossible among them. — AUGUSTUS 
Neander : Life of Jesus, pp. 14, 15. 

[1] Were the Jews Trinitarians, before the coming of Christ? I 
know of no satisfactory evidence of this tact. All the efforts to prove 
it have ended in mere appeals to cabalizing Jews, who lived long after 

the New Testament was written [2] If it be true, as some 

assert, that the Jews of our Saviour's time, before they became Chris- 
tians, were accustomed to believe that their Messiah was to be a divine 
person, how can it be accounted for, that, after the first generation of 
Christians among them, the great body of Jewish converts in Pales- 
tine, and many elsewhere, became Ebionites, the peculiarity of whose 
opinion was a denial of the divine nature of that Saviour whom they 
professed to honor ? If all the tendency of their education and tradi- 
tional belief had been as stated above, this fact seems to be altogether 
unaccountable. It speaks more than volumes of mere reasoning from 
conjecture, or from the declarations of Rabbins living long after the 
Christian era had commenced ; of which we find such striking exam- 
ples in P. Allix's learned book on ancient Jewish opinions. . . . How 
much the pious Jews of ancient times actually deduced from such 
passages [of the Old Testament as appear to ascribe a divine nature to 
the Messiah, and to set forth the Spirit of God as a divine person] we 
do not know; and we possess no adequate means of determining. 
But that the later Jews, and in particular those cotemporary with the 
apostles, knew nothing of the doctrine of a Trinity, seems to be ren- 
dered nearly certain from the fact, that neither Josephus, nor Philo in 
all his numerous speculations on the subject of religion, gives any inti- 
mation of this. Whatever there is in Philo that seems to approach 
to this, is merely the eclectic philosophy intermingled with his reli- 
gious views, and may be found in heathen writers almost or quite as 
fully as in him. At all events, the Nazaroean and Ebionitish sects, sa 



UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENT JEWS. 345 

prevalent among early Christian Jews, incontestably prove what the 
usual and predominant state of the Jewish mind was. — Moses Stuart. 

The first extract is taken from Stuart's " Critical History of the Old- 
Testament Canon," p. 407; the second, from his article on Schleiermacher, 
in the " Biblical Repository " for April and July, 1835, vol. vi. p. 107. 

The Hebrew people were little concerned with metaphysical ques- 
tions. . . . That Jehovah, who is highly exalted above all that is finite, 
who according to the very idea of him is invisible, whose very aspect 
is consuming, should come down to this world, clothe himself with a 
costume that is finite, and become man, — this thought is wholly 
foreign to the Hebrew religion, in itself considered. Much rather 
must we admit, that the Hebrew religion glories in the fact, that, in 
opposition to the heathen world, it holds fast the holy personality of 
Jehovah, pure and highly exalted above nature and the whole world ; 
but this it could not do, if it had established a bfiovoLa, e.g. of humanity 
with Divinity in any sense. To keep itself above all natural religion, 
the moral view taken by the Hebrew religion must form for itself such 
a metaphysical view of the relation between God and the world, as 
lay far distant from God's becoming a man ; yea, even such an one 
that the Hebrew world would shudder and be astonished at a thought 
like this. — J. A. Dorner, apud Stuart, in Bib. Sac, vol. vii. p. 699. 

EXPLANATION OF THE PHRASE, " WORD OF THE LORD," OCCURRING IN 
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND IN OTHER JEWISH WRITINGS. 

I do not think that we ought to use, as an authority, the last para- 
phrases, in which is often found the term " Word," when God is 
spoken of, — I say, that we ought not to use them as an authority to 
prove the Divinity of the Word in the New Testament. Such ex- 
pressions are explained by the Jews otherwise than by Christians; 
and, besides, it is not judicious to make the truths of Christianity 
depend on uncertain allegories, which are most commonly founded on 
the imagination of the Jewish doctors. — Father Simon : Histoirc 
Critique, du Vieux Testament, liv. iii. chap. 24. 

With much better reason the same Frenchman disapproves of the 
use of the Targums for the proof of the hoyog, or Word, in that sense 
in which we find it expressed in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. 
John. For through all those Targums, in a great number of places 
i t where mention is made of God in the original Hebrew, it being ren- 
dered "the word of God" in the Chaldee interpretation, hence the 



346 THE DOCTRINE OP A TRIUNE GOD 

Chaldee Memra, which in that phrase signifieth "the Word," hath 
been thought to correspond with the Greek loyog in that Gospel, and 
both exactly to denote the same thing. And, therefore, several learned 
men have endeavored to explain the one by the other, and from hence 
to prove the Divinity of our Saviour. But others, as well as Monsieur 
Simon, being sensible that this phrase in the Chaldee being an idiom 
in that language, which may be otherwise explained, they are against 
pressing any argument from it for this point, because it is capable 
of an answer to which we cannot well reply. — Dr. H. Prideaux : 
The Old and New Testament Connected, vol. ii. pp. 355-6. 

Though they [namely, the Rabbins] frequently used the expression, 
"J^l ^"y?* 1 ??, tna t 1S 9 the word of God, especially in their Targums or 
paraphrases, they did not mean to express a separate and distinct 
being from Jehovah himself, or, as we should say, the second person 
of the Trinity. The word & 'I fa* 1 fa is frequently used in the Chaldee 
paraphrases as equivalent to the Hebrew &?n> that is, the Name, a 
term by which the Jews — who, out of superstitious reverence for the 
word " Jehovah," avoided the uttering of it as much as possible — 
denoted the Supreme Being. See, for instance, Isa. xxvi. 4, in the 
Chaldee paraphrase. — J. D. Michaelis : Introduction to the New 
Testament, vol. iii. part i. pp. 280-1. 

It has been said that the Christians came to speak of Christ as the 
Word, because, in the Jewish Targums, Memra, or the Word, was 
substituted for the ineffable name " Jehovah." The fact appears to 
be partly true ; but the argument deduced from it is extremely fal- 
lacious. When we read of God acting or speaking by himself, he is 
said in the Targums to have acted or spoken " by his word ; " and it 
has been asserted that Memra, or " the Word," is used distinctively 
for the Messiah. But it has been proved satisfactorily, that Memra is 
never used in the Targums for a distinct and separate person : it is, 
in fact, only another form for the pronoun " himself." It was at first 
applied only to Jehovah, as when he is said " to have sworn by him- 
self," or " to have made a covenant between himself and any one." 
The use of the term was afterwards transferred to human actions j 
and though the Targums apply it in those places which they interpret 
of the Messiah, yet this application of it is by no means exclusive ; 
and, as I have said, it is never used for a person separate and distinct 
from the principal subject of the sentence. — Dr. Robert Burton : t 
Bampton Lectures; in Theological Works, vol. iii. pp, 221-2. 



UNKNOWN TO THE iiNCIENT JEWS. 347 

The following appear to be # the results of impartially examining 
this question : 1. That the primary import of the Chaldee expression 
[" the word of Jah "] is that, whatever it may be, which is the medium 
of communicating the mind and intentions of one person to another. 
2. That it hence assumed the sense of a reciprocal pronoun. 3. That, 
when used in the latter sense, its most usual application is to the 
Divine Being ; denoting, if we may use the expression, " God," " his 
very self," Deus ipsissimus ; and is the synonyme and substitute 
of the most exclusive of all the appellatives of Deity, the name 
■ Jehovah." 4. That there is no certain proof of its being distinctly 
applied to the Messiah in any of the Targums now extant j while, in 
very numerous places, it is so plainly used with personal attributives, 
yet in distinction from the name of God, that an application to the 
Messiah cannot be held improbable. 5. That solely from the use of 
the phrase, the Memra of Jah, or " the word of the Lord," in those 
paraphrases, no absolute information can be deduced concerning the 
doctrine of the Jews, in the interval between the Old Testament and 
the New, upon the person of their expected Messiah. I have said, 
solely from the use of this phrase ; but, if we combine this fact with 
others derived from the study of the Old Testament, it will, I con- 
ceive, appear a very rational conjecture, that the Rabbinical authors 
of the age referred to had vague ideas of the " Word " as an intelli- 
gent agent, the medium of the divine operations and communications 
to mankind. I cannot, however, make this opinion a ground of in- 
dependent argument, as has been done by some writers, who have 
probably taken it from each other, in succession, without much severity 
of examination. — Dr. J. P. Smith : Scripture Testimony, vol. i. 
pp. 346-7. 

It would be easy to quote additional passages of a similar character, as 
to the meaning of the phrase " Memra or word of Jah," from Salmeron, 
Grotius, Lewis Capellus, Le Clerc, Beausobre, Doderleix, and other 
learned men in the ranks of the orthodox. 

The following extracts are more comprehensive, explaining the phrase 
" word of the Lord," or " of God," as used not only in the Targums, but in 
the Old Testament and in the Apocrypha: — 

Some have endeavored to prove that the Jews had some knowledge 
of the Trinity, or at least of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, from 
all these sources [namely, the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the 
Chaldaic Paraphrases]. But (a) the texts cited from the Old Testa- 
ment, in proof of this point, do not by themselves perfectly establish 



348 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

it. . . . Neither (b) are the texts cited from the Apocrypha altogether 
satisfactory. The appellation, ?x>yog deov [word of God}, which occurs 
frequently in the Book of Wisdom and in Sirach, cannot be clearly 
proved, in any one instance, to designate a person of the Godhead, but 
signifies either the divine oracles and revelations, as Sir. i. 5, or the 
divine decrees and will, as Sir. xliii. 26. Book of Wisdom, xviii. 15, 
coll. ix. 1 ; xvi. 12. . . . Nor does the appellation " Son of God," 
in the Book of Wisdom, ii. 13-20, designate the Messiah, but, in a 
more general sense, a favorite of God, one approved by Heaven, 
a righteous person. The phrase "Holy Spirit," used in the same 
book (chap. ix. 17, 18), there means only a holy temper, virtue, tem- 
perance, continence, sanctitas animi : cf. ix. 4, 10. (c) The terms, 
^ *H tfjKPS, &Vfr£ xyi^ \the word of Jah and the word of 
God}, are used very frequently in the Chaldaic paraphrases, and seem, 
as there employed, to designate a person, and have therefore been 
compared with the appellation loyoc tieov, and considered as indicating 
the doctrine of the Trinity. This is a very important argument. It 
is doubtful, however, whether these terms were understood by the 
Jews contemporary with the paraphrasts as titles of the Messiah ; or 
whether, as many suppose, they were regarded as synonymous with 
numen, majestas divina. — G. C. Knapp : Lectures on Christian 
Theology, sect. xli. I. 

Dr. Woods, the translator of Knapp's Lectures, thinks there is no doubt 
that in the Book of Wisdom, an iEgyptico-Jewish production, the writer, 
influenced by the extravagant philosophy of Plato and of the East which 
then prevailed at Alexandria, hypostatized the divine attributes, and meant 
tc speak of " Wisdom " as a being who proceeded, before the creation, from 
the substance of God. If this opinion were correct, it would not follow that 
he believed the Messiah to have been a person in the Godhead, or that there 
were three persons in the divine nature ; nor, if he had, would it follow that 
the great body of the Jewish nation adopted his theology. 

A careful examination of the Scriptures will lead us to see that 
the Hebrews were accustomed to speak of the word of God in a man- 
ner which not unfrequently led to personification ; and at times they 
expressed themselves almost as if it were a hypostasis. The founda- 
tion of this seems to be laid in Gen. i. 3 : " God said, Let there be 
light ; and there was light," This is equivalent to a declaration, that 
the word of God has in it a creative power. Expressly after this 
tenor is Ps. xxxiii. 6 : H By the word of the Lord were the heavens 
made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth" There 



UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENT JEWS. 349 

can indeed be no reasonable ground to doubt that all this is figurative ; 
or, in other words, that it is a symbolical representation of God's 
executive power or energy. Not unfrequently is " the word of God " 
spoken of in such a way as would seem, at first view, to indicate that 
it is regarded as a being, a hypostasis, which possesses and exercises 
attributes of its own. Thus it is said in Heb. xi. 3, that " the worlds 
were framed by the word of God : " so in 2 Pet. iii. 5. This word 
is a life-giving power: Deut. viii. 3. Matt. iv. 4. Luke iv. 4. It 
gives spiritual as well as physical life : Ps. cxix. 50. 1 Pet. i. 23. 
It has attributes or qualities ascribed to it: Ps. cxix. 89. Isa. xl. 8. 
1 Pet. i. 23. It is an agent in the execution of the divine commands : 
Ps. cvii. 20; cxlvii. 15, 18. Isa. Iv. 11. It is a messenger giving and 
imparting admonition : 1 Kings xii. 22. 1 Chron. xvii. 3. Jer. xxvii. 
1 ; xxxiv. 8 ; xxxvi. 1. To the word of God is ascribed the power 
of searching and discerning the most secret thoughts of men : Heb. 
iv. 12. We must not suppose, however, that an enlightened and 
spiritual Hebrew regarded the word of God as a real hypostasis or 
substantial being, notwithstanding the strong language thus employed 
respecting it. — Another important circumstance, pertaining to the 
usus loquendi of the Jews at the time when John wrote his Gospel, 
deserves to be brought distinctly into view. Not far from the begin- 
ning of the Christian era, the Targums or translations into Chaldee of 
the Hebrew Scriptures were made, and committed to writing ; of the 
Pentateuch by Onkelos, and of most of the remaining books by Jona- 
than ben Uzziel. In these works, and in other Targums, a special 
idiom prevails respecting the use of the phrase, " word of the Lord ; * 
and it presents some views of the usus loquendi of the Jews of that 
period, which are not only remarkable, but very striking. In my own 
apprehension, they have an important bearing upon the use of " Logos " 
in our text. The Chaldee word for " Logos "is fc'lto^fa, a noun with 
formative ft derived from "IfaKj dixit. To this noun the Targumists 
subjoin the Gen. nin^ ^1 (abridged ^ h ?), which then is exactly 
equivalent to 6 hoyog rov Oeov. This expression is employed in the 
Targums, in cases almost without number, instead of the simple mtTJ 
or E^njj* of the Hebrew text. In particular, wherever the Hebrew 
represents the Divine Being as in action, or as revealing himself by 
his works, or by communications to individuals, it is common for the 
Targumists to say that his word operates, or makes the revelation. . . . 
Strikingly is this idiom illustrated in a later Targum of 2 Chron. xvi. 3, 

30 



350 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

where the Hebrew runs thus : " There is a league between me and 
thee;" Targum, "between my word and thy word." Thus fc^fa^fa 
came, by usage among the Jews, to be employed not only to desig- 
nate God as acting or making some revelation of himself or of his 
will, but to be employed as a kind of intensive periphrastic pronoun 
to designate God himself. The transition was not unnatural. That 
which is often employed to express God revealed may easily come at 
last to express the idea of God simply considered. What now are we 
to say as to the real nature and design of the idiom in question ? Is 
it personification, or does it amount to the assertion of hypostasis ? 
If we were to judge of this matter only in view of the leading in- 
stances produced above [Exod. xix. 17. Job xlii. 9. Ps. ii. 4. Gen. 
xxvi. 3; xxxix. 2. Lev. xxvi. 46. Deut. v. 5; xx. 1. Gen. vi. 6; 
viii. 21], we might be ready to say that it amounts to asserting hypos- 
tasis. But, when we compare the idiom in its whole extent, we cannot 
view the matter in such a light. Even those cases which present 
" word " in the sense of the reciprocal pronoun cannot be regarded as 
hypostatically designating a being different from God. In very late 
Targums there are, indeed, passages which plainly imply a hypostatic 
use of a "1 fa* 1 fa, i.e. word; but, in those that were extant in the time 
of John, we find none which necessarily convey such a meaning. — 
Abridged from Moses Stuart on John i. 1-18, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 
vol. vii. pp. 18-22. 

It has been maintained, that the Jewish Scriptures convey the idea 
of the Logos in the phrase, "the word of God; " implying that this 
phrase is the designation of a divine person, with omnipotent power, 
and that it is identii^ul with the Logos of John. If we rest upon the 
Scripture alone for the meaning of this epithet, we should undoubtedly 
come to the conclusion, with some of the most learned critics, that it 
is only a periphrasis for God, or used as expressive of his active power 
or his wisdom. It can hardly be maintained, that this term could 
have conveyed to the Jewish mind the conception of the Word, who 
was to become incarnate among men. . . . The Jewish Logos and the 
Logos of Philo are not convertible. So that we cannot derive, from 
the facts in question, a convincing argument that the Divine Saviour, 
in his distinct personality and his co-equality with God, was known 
before the Messiah himself was manifested. And, after Jesus himself 
appeared, a true knowledge of him was slowly developed. — Dr. Seth 
Sweetser, in Biblioth. Sacra for January, 1854; vol. xi. pp. 103-4, 



NOT REVEALED OR KNOWN TO THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 351 



SECT. III. — THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD, OR OF THE DEITY 
OF CHRIST, NOT REVEALED OR KNOWN TO THE DISCIPLES BEFORE 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 

I do fear, my respected friend, that some of your opinions and reasonings will turn out 
to be weapons put into the hands of Unitarians. — Dr. Samuel Miller. 

Christ did not receive testimony from the evangelists, that he was 
God. — Alphonso Salmeron : Comm. in Evang., Prolog, xxvi. 
torn. i. p. 394. 

Nor understood they [our Saviour's own disciples] the mystery of 
the Sacred Trinity as we do, and many other recondite secrets. — 
John Evelyn : The True Religion, vol. ii. pp. 87-8. 

Be they who they would, Gentiles as well as Jews> that applied to 
him [our Lord], . . . and implored his assistance, if they declared 
their belief in him as in a person sent from God, he desired no more, 
and never sent them away without relief. But, as that was not the 
time for him to declare the utmost extent of his power and authority, 
and much less the nature of his kingdom which he . . . signified to be 
just at hand, to show them how he designed to redeem mankind, or 
to manifest his Divinity in plain and explicit words ; so ... he wrapt 

them up in mysterious and allegorical expressions Though St. 

Peter more than once confessed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, 
yet it is certain from the evangelical history, that neither he nor any 
of the rest of the apostles did then know our Lord to be what he 
really was. This was the main article which they not only could not 
then bear, but which was by no means proper to be then clearly re- 
vealed. . . . They had such rules given them, for the direction of their 
conduct, as he expected should be obeyed by those that would profess 
themselves to be his disciples. Thus they were told what they were 
to do, and in whom to believe. If they took him to be the Saviour 
of the world, that was sufficient. But then they were directed, by all 
that he did and said, to look up to the Father as the sender, and him 
as the person sent ; and still to give the Father the glory in all that 
they should see the Son at any time do. If they thought him supe- 
rior to Moses, who was no more than a servant, though " faithful in 
all his house," whilst he executed the commands of his great Master, 
whereas our Lord was his Son, to whom he communicated his whole 
will, they did as much as was then required of them to do. Farthei 



352 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

manifestation of himself would not have suited with that state of 
humiliation in which he appeared before his passion. This conceal- 
ment of himself till his resurrection is what the ancient fathers meant 
by the word " economy," when applied to this subject. — Dr. Wm, 
Wotton : Disc, on the Omniscience of the Son of God, pp. 32, 36-8* 
Our blessed Lord himself, in compliance probably with the weak- 
ness and prejudices of his hearers, says very little, in his discourses, 
of his own Divinity. This seemed to be one of those things which 
" they were not as yet able to receive." He constantly calls himself 
by no other name than the Son of man ; nor doth it appear that his 
disciples, till after his resurrection, St. Peter only excepted, took him 
for a divine person. . . . Our blessed Lord chose rather to set forth 
his divine character by his actions than his discourses, and left the 
fuller declarations of it to be made by his apostles after his ascension. 
— Dr. Thomas Mangey : Plain Notions of our Lord's Divinity, 
page 10. 

But is it at all probable that Peter would have had the effrontery to 
rebuke his Master, if he regarded him as Almighty God ? In the present 
connection, the following remarks by Bishop Maltby (Illust. of the Truth 
of the Chris. Religion, p. 124), deserve a place: " In the sixteenth chapter of 
the same evangelist [Matthew], it appears to be intimated, that all the 
disciples had not fully ascertained, in their own minds, what was the real 
character of their Master; since only one, in reply to his question upon that 
point, described him by his true designation. But, immediately afterwards, 
that same apostle showed his utter ignorance of the nature of that designa- 
tion, and the entire coincidence of his notions with those of his countrymen, 
when, in direct opposition to a plain declaration of Jesus concerning his 
impending sufferings and death, he replied in a tone of impatience and 
incredulity, * Be it far from thee, Lord! this shall not be unto thee.' " 

»' My Lord ! and my God ! " I do not understand this as an address 
to Jesus ; but thus, " Yes : he it is indeed ! He, my Lord, and my 
God ! " Yet, in giving this interpretation, I do not affirm that Thomas 
passed all at once from the extreme of doubt to the highest degree of 
faith, and acknowledged Christ to be the true God. This appears to 
me too much for the then existing knowledge of the disciples ; and 
We have no intimation that they recognized the divine nature of Christ, 
before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I am therefore inclined to 
understand this expression, which broke out from Thomas in the height 
of his astonishment, in a figurative sense, denoting only, " Whom I 
shall ever reverence in the highest degree." If he only recollected 
what he had heard from the mouth of Jesus ten days before (chap. xiv. 



NOT REVEALED OR KNOWN TO THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 353 

9, 10), that recollection might have given occasion to an expression 
wlich probably Thomas himself could not have perfectly explained; 
as is often the case with such words as escape us when Ave are under 
the most overpowering surprise. But yet the expression might be 
equivalent to saying, " He ! my Lord ! with whom God is most inti- 
mately united, and is in him ! — in whom I behold God as it were 
present before me I " Or a person raised from the dead might be 
regarded as a divinity ; for the word " God " is not always used in the 
strict doctrinal sense. — J. D. Michaelis : Anmerk. on John xx. 28 j 
as quoted by J. P. Smith in Sciipt. Test, vol. ii. pp. 68-9. 

Many other remarks of a similar character will (d. v.) be introduced into 
the volume consisting of interpretations of texts in the Gospels. 

Now, we shall willingly admit, that the apostles themselves were 
believers under this idea mostly [namely, that the title " Son of God " 
denotes the same thing as Messiah or Christ], during our Saviour's 
residence upon earth ; as it is certain they had not the whole mystery 
of the divine will, the grand scheme of man's redemption, clearly and 
fully made known to them before our Lord's ascension into heaven. 
... It would be ridiculous to suppose that the apostles could believe 
their Master to be the Son of God in the highest [the Trinitarian] 
sense, . . . when " they all forsook him and fled." — Wm. Hawkins : 
Discourses on Scripture Mysteries, pp. 63-4. 

Yet this writer says that Jesus frequently asserted his truly divine nature 
to his disciples, who must have understood him. 

We can scarcely think it strange that Jesus should have spoken 
less clearly and explicitly than his apostles after him, respecting the 
relation which he bore to God the Father, and that he never declared 
himself the Creator of the world (an argument apparently in the 
Socinians' favor), when we consider that a different method would 
have been unworthy of the divine wisdom, which required that the 
Jews should be drawn off, by slow degrees, from their too contracted 
notions respecting the Unity of God, and gradually imbibe just senti- 
ments in relation to the Messiah. — J. F. Flatt : Dissertation on 
the Deity of Christ ; in Biblical Repertory for 1829, or new series, 
vol. i. pp. 174-5. 

As it was our blessed Lord's Divinity, which, we have seen, he 
studiousl) concealed, but wished all men to come to the knowledge 
of, &c. — Oxford or Anglican Doctors : Tracts for the Times, 
No. 80, in vol. iv. p. 38. 

30* 



354 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

It would be unreasonable to expect that this doctrine [the Trinity 
in Unity] should have been fully revealed till the day of Pentecost. 
... In the histories, therefore, written by those evangelists who con- 
fine themselves exclusively to a recital of some leading discourses of 
our Lord, and to an account of some of his principal miracles, I should 
expect to find fewer traces of these higher doctrines. In Mr. Bel- 
sham's own words, I would ask, " When our Lord was so very cautious 
in discovering himself to be the Messiah, would he, at the same time, 
make no hesitation in declaring himself to be * the very eternal God ' ? " 
" What would have been the effect upon the apostles," says he again, 
" the instant the amazing truth was communicated to them ? Their 
faculties would be absorbed in terror and astonishment ; no more free 
conversation, no more asking of questions, no more attempts to impose 
upon him, or to rebuke him; the greatest awe and distance would 
instantaneously take place, and all the endearing and familiar relations 
of master, instructor, companion, and friend, would at once have been 
broken off." The little impression which our Saviour's miracles made 
upon the apostles, and the wavering and unsettled conviction of their 
minds as to his being the Messiah after all (Luke xxiv. 11, 25), is 
evident from many passages. Such a frame of mind as this would be 
incapable of receiving and comprehending doctrines more abstruse, 
when even the testimony of their senses produced so little effect upon 
them. I should therefore be prepared to expect that the grand dis- 
closure of Christ's divine nature would not be formally made to them 
till that period should arrive when they should be " able to bear all 
things ; " which period, from John xvi. 12, 13, we learn to be the 
epoch of the descent of the Holy Ghost. — Dr. Longley, Bishop of 
"Ripon : The Brothers' Controversy, pp. 54-7. 

It is to be observed, that the Lord Jesus professedly withheld the 
full manifestation of his doctrines till the period subsequent to his 
death and resurrection. ... If we duly consider these features of the 
early Christian economy, we shall not expect to find a full declaration 
of the doctrine respecting our Lord's person [meaning, of course, as 
God-man] in the narratives of the evangelists, or in his own discourses j 
but we shall rather look for intimations, for principles implied in facts 
and assertions, and for conclusions from such facts and assertions de- 
duced by minute attention and close examination on our own part. 

To demand that this doctrine [that of the pre-existence of 

Christ], supposing it to be true, should have been taught by our Lord 
himself, in the most clear and decisive manner, is not reasonable j for 



NOT REVEALED OR KNOWN TO THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 355 

it was of the very genius and character of his ministry, that by it the 
peculiar doctrines of the Christian dispensation should not be fully 
unfolded. . . . Jesus himself appears to have plainly insisted, in his 
own teachings, upon no doctrines but those which were generally 
admitted by his countrymen as resting on the authority of Moses and 
the prophets. — Dr. J. P. Smith : Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, 
vol. i. pp. 429-30, 509. 

The relation between the disciples and their divine Master . . . 
was like that between children and their parents, in this also, that, as 
they had ever found a ready present help in him for all their wants, 
he stood in the place of God to them, as a father stands to his child. 
It is true he also was God. This, however, they knew not : they did 
not regard him as God, but much more as a man, like, though far 
superior in power and wisdom, to themselves. — Julius Charles 
Hare : Mission of the Comforter, vol. i. pp. 9, 10. 



See that portion of the present work which treats of the simplicity ol 
our Lord's teachings, pp. 230-3. 

Notwithstanding all the constraint and cautiousness observable in some 
of the extracts just made, the writers cannot help acknowledging, that the 
Saviour did not teach — that the apostles, during his ministry, did not 
recognize — that Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not assert — the dogma of a 
Trinity in Unity, or of any other nature in Jesus Christ than that which 
was human. But, if these doctrines are of essential importance in the 
scheme of salvation, or if they constitute a main element in Christianity, as 
they are represented in the discourses and writings of many theologians, 
does it not seem strange and incredible, that, while its Founder taught, and 
in his life exhibited, the great doctrines of the Divine Unity, the Father- 
hood of God, and the fraternity of man, he should never have instructed his 
followers, either by announcement, or through his teachings and his prayers 
by clear implication, that there were three persons in the one God ; and that 
he himself, though the meek and lowly one, though the guest of publicans 
and the washer of his disciples' feet, though the disclaimer of absolute 
goodness, of perfect knowledge, and of independent power, and though act- 
ing as the Sent and Anointed of the Father, was at the same time the equal 
of Jehovah and the same Being, the second person of an infinite and ever- 
glorious Trinity ? And does it not seem equally amazing and incredible, 
that, if he did express or clearly imply these mysteries, and the apostles, 
through their Jewish prejudices and the feebleness of their capacities, could 
not understand or appreciate the knowledge which their Lord imparted, 
none of the evangelists should in an)' instance allude to the d illness of the 
Twelve in being unable to discern his essential Divinity as well as his Mes 
siahship ? 



356 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 



*ECT. IV. — THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD, OR OF THE DEITY Otf 
CHRIST, NOT DIVULGED IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



You will reveal it. 

Not I. SOAKSPEARE. 



It is certain that those necessary doctrines of faith [namely, those 
of the Holy Trinity, the Deity of Christ, &c] which were but lightly 
touched upon in the Gospels and the Acts, are distinctly and fully 

explained in these Epistles Most of the choicest and sublimest 

truths of Christianity are to be met with in the Epistles of the apostles, 
they being such doctrines as were not clearly discovered and opened 
in the Gospels and the Acts. — Dr. John Edwards : Socinianism 
Unmasked, pp. 41, 79. 

These passages are taken from one of the books penned by this learned 
but bitter controversialist against Locke's " Reasonableness of Christianity," 
and are chiefly aimed at the sentiment expressed by the great philosopher, 
that it is not in the Epistles of the New Testament, which were written for 
the resolving of doubts and the reforming of mistakes, but in the Gospels 
and the Acts of the Apostles, that men are to learn what are the funda- 
mental articles of faith. 

St. Luke, ... in his second treatise, in which he lets us know what 
the apostles did after they had received the Holy Ghost, tells us how 
our Lord fulfilled his promise of his future presence ; how the apostles, 
after their receiving of the Holy Ghost, baptized converts, bestowed 
the gifts of the Spirit upon those that were worthy to receive them, 
founded churches, and positively declared that there was no other 
name given under heaven by which men could be saved, but only the 
name of Jesus Christ. This is what we can chiefly gather from these 
two books of this evangelist. — Dr. William Wotton : Sermon on 
the Omniscience of the Son of God, p. 50. 

In that portion of his Sermon which precedes the present extract, Dr. 
Wotton says that in St. Matthew's Gospel " we see very little which 
directly leads us to believe that Jesus Christ was really God." After stat- 
ing that this evangelist all along pursues ideas suitable to the state of 
humiliation in which Christ appeared, he goes on to state that St. Mark had 
constantly in view, and abridges, the Gospel of Matthew ; and that St. 
Luke's narrative, though comprehending much not in the two foregoing 
evangelists, all tends to the same purpose, namely, that our Saviour was 



NOT DIVULGED IN THE ACTS OF THE Al»OSTLES. 357 

gent from above to preach the gospel, with full power to save those who 
should believe in him. After quoting Christ's declaration to his disciples, 
that " all power was given to him," &c, and his promise, that " he would 
be with them to the end of the world," the learned writer says that St. Luke 
goes farther, and, in his second treatise, narrates what the apostles did after 
they had received the Holy Spirit, according to the extract we have made 
above. In the contents of his Sermon, when referring to these passages, the 
writer thus expresses the nature of his sentiments: "Little of the Divinity 
of the Son of God in St. Matthew, pp. 49, 50 ; St. Mark and St. Luke follow 
the same method, p. 50." After perusing Wotton's abstract of the Acts 
of the Apostles, it would not, we think, be an unfair inference for the reader 
to draw, that Luke must have represented the first preachers of the gospel 
as saying very "little" indeed "of the Divinity," or, as we would express 
it, of the Deity, " of the Son of God." 

We know how frequently this passage [Matt, xxviii. 19] is quoted 
as a proof of the doctrine of the Trinity, by many, indeed, who do not 
believe this doctrine, and wish perhaps to undermine it. I must con* 
fess that I cannot see it in this point of view. The eternal Divinity 
of the Son — which is so clearly taught in other passages, particularly 
John i. 1-14 and Rom. ix. 5 — is here not once mentioned ; and it is 
impossible to understand from this passage, whether the Holy Ghost 
is a person. The meaning of Jesus may have been this : Those who 
were baptized should, upon their baptism, confess that they believed 
in the Father and in the Son, and in all the doctrines inculcated by 
the Holy Spirit, — both those which occur in the Old Testament, as 
well as those which the apostles were to deliver under the influence 
of divine inspiration, and which as yet they had not learned ; that they 
were to receive and believe these doctrines, and, in one word, embrace 
the whole divine revelation. In fact, I do not believe that the words 
in the form of baptism can signify more, because it was impossible, for 
the majority of those who believed, to think more upon the subject 
at the time ; for they were not regularly instructed in the mystery of 
the Trinity before baptism, and only received complete instruction 
in the doctrines of Christianity after baptism. Read only the second 
chapter of the Acts, where three thousand were baptized in one day. 
What did these persons know of the Divinity of Christ, of which 
Peter, in his discourse, did not say one word ? What did they know 
of the personality of the Holy Ghost ? They w r ere not doctrines of 
the Jewish church, which, in the first instance, might be assumed; 
and yet they are baptized (presuming the apostles to have fulfilled 
these commands of Jesus) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost What could they otherwise think but that 



358 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

they acknowledged, by baptism, Jesus to be the Son of God and the 
Christ ; the gifts of the Holy Ghost (which, as Peter observed, they 
both saw and heard) to be no delusion, but to descend from heaven ; 
and the doctrines which the apostles were to teach, under the influ- 
ence of divine inspiration, to be those which they did, and which they 
ought to, believe ? This is the more striking, where, in Acts xvi. 33, 
it is not to be supposed that the jailer should have known any thing 
of the eternal Divinity of Christ, and of the personality of the Holy 
Ghost ; or that Paul, in his very short conversation (ver. 32), should 
have instructed him in it, as we find no traces of it in his first dis- 
courses, contained in the thirteenth and seventeenth chapters. — 
J. D. Michaelis : The Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
pp. 325-7. 

It may be mentioned, in passing, that the texts referred to by Michaelis, 
as " clearly teaching " the eternal Divinity of the Son of God (John i. 1-14, 
Rom. ix. 5, and others), are acknowledged by Trinitarians, of as high a 
standing, to be either obscure or susceptible of a very different interpreta- 
tion. These acknowledgments it is intended to place under the texts to 
which they refer, in future volumes of this work. 

We read, in the Acts [ii. 41 ; iv. 4], of three or five thousand souls 
being converted in one day, and admitted into the church through 
baptism. Does this fact possibly allow us to imagine that they were 

all instructed in the detailed mysteries of religion ? No more 

than a general idea of Christianity was given ; whereas the important 
doctrines, and, in some sense, I might say the most important doc- 
trines, ... of the Trinity, the incarnation, and, above all, that dogma 
which now-a-days particularly is considered the most vital of all, the 
atonement on the cross, were not even slightly hinted at, much less 
communicated, to the new Christian before he was baptized. — CAR- 
DINAL Wiseman : Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Catholic 
Church, vol. i. pp. 107, 112. 

The claims of Jesus, as advanced by himself, and as first urged by 
the apostles and the three earlier evangelists, were addressed to Jews, 
who admitted the authority of the Old Testament, and looked for such 
a Messiah as it described. Their ignorance, indeed, and their preju- 
dices were very great. It appears from the Gospels, that both the 
higher orders of the Jews and the mass of the nation had very obscure, 
and probably inconsistent, notions concerning the Messiah, who was 
the object of their eager, but generally carnal and worldly, expectation. 
Yet this expectation rested upon the Holy Scriptures j and it was 



NOT DIVULGED IN TILE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 359 

proper to remit them to those Scriptures for the rectifying of their 
errors. It is plain that the immediate object, in the writings of 
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, was to produce a conviction that Jesus 
of Nazareth was the Messiah announced and described in the prophetic 
writings j and they evidently left the scrutinizing and application of 
details to the duty and diligence of their readers. A similar course 
was followed by the apostles and their fellow-laborers in preaching 
Christianity, as they regularly communicated to the Jews, in the first 
instance, the word of life. The converts were directed to " search the 
Scriptures daily ; " they were assured that those Scriptures testified 
of Christ ; and it would follow, of course, that all which they could 
discover in the inspired writings, concerning the characters, office, and 
dignity of the Messiah, would be transferred to the person of Jesus of 
Nazareth. But this would not be a rapid process ; and in proportion 
as they made progress in this study would their knowledge of the 
truth, in this respect and in all its other branches and relations, 
become extensive and accurate. ... I submit to such of my readers 
as may be competent and inclined to the minute examination of the 
question, whether this plan of a gradual development, connected with 
the study and application of the Old Testament, was not, though 
imperfectly understood and ill expressed, the object really intended 
by those Christian fathers who maintained that the apostles, in their 
earlier ministry, refrained from divulging the pre-existence and Divi- 
nity of Christ, and that John was the first w r ho advanced this doctrine. 
Though some of the citations made by Dr. Priestley are by him mis- 
construed, and others by being detached from their connection appear 
stronger than they really are, it is undeniable that this opinion was 
held by Origen, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and others. — Dr. J. P. 
Smith : Script Test to the Messiah, vol. ii. pp. 152-3, 155-6. 

It would appear, then, that, instead of delivering to the Jews the dogma 
of Christ's Supreme Divinity, the apostles, in their oral discourses, endea- 
vored to persuade their countrymen, by an appeal to their Scriptures, that 
Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah ; leaving them to discover, by 
their own study of these writings, that he constituted one of the persons of 
self-conscious agents in a Triune Godhead; the comparatively obscure pro- 
phecies relating to his character and dignity being supposed, in this case, l% 
be plainer and more intelligible than the teachings of the Founder of Chris- 
tianity himself, and rendering it unnecessary for the apostles to say any 
thing at all respecting doctrines which have been conceived by many to 
he at the very foundation of the gospel, and to form, indeed, its peculiar 
characteristics I 



360 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

In the second section of the present chapter, we showed it to have been 
the conviction of many Trinitarians, that the mysterious doctrines just 
referred to are not revealed in the Old Testament; and that, though some 
of the learned Jews may have filled their imaginations with vagaries as to 
divine powers and hypostatized attributes, the great body of the people had 
not the slightest expectation that their Messiah would be in nature any 
thing more than a human being. If this opinion be well founded, — and, 
so far as the Jews of Palestine are concerned, it seems to be established be- 
yond doubt by the New-Testament records, — we would naturally suppose, 
that, if the apostles had any knowledge of Trinitarian dogmas, they would 
have preferred inculcating these in clear and express terms, instead of 
sending their hearers to passages of the Old Testament, where, enveloped in 
clouds and figures, they can be discovered only by the lights thrown over 
them of a previously formed faith ; and, even with that faith, sometimes not 
at all. Indeed, had the apostles acted in the way attributed to them, they 
would have unquestionably failed in their purposes, and produced a con- 
trary effect. If, for instance, with the view of leading the minds of his 
hearers to a recognition not only of the divine authority, but of the eternally 
divine nature, of Christ, Peter had adduced, as in Acts iii. 22 he is reported 
to have adduced, the prediction uttered by Moses, " A Prophet shall the 
Lord your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me: him 
shall ye hear in all things," — he could not have taken a more decisive 
mode of confirming the Unitarian views which he had himself set forth in 
his first sermon to the Jews, chap. ii. 22, " Ye men of Israel, hear these 
words : Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by mira- 
cles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as 
ye yourselves also know." Speaking of the prophecy which Peter quotes 
from Deut. xviii. 15-19, Coleridge, in his " Literary Remains" (Works, 
vol. v. p. 282), says, "If I could be persuaded that this passage primarily 
referred to Christ; and that Christ, not Joshua and his successors, was the 
prophet here promised, — I must either become a Unitarian psilanthropist, 
and join Priestley and Belsham, or abandon to the Jews their own Messiah 
as yet to come, and cling to the religion of John and Paul, without further 
reference to Moses than to Lycurgus, Solon, and Numa ; all of whom, in 
their different spheres, no less prepared the way for the coming of the Lord, 
* the desire of the nations.* " 

It has been seen that some of the church fathers were forced to acknow- 
ledge the Unitarianism of the Book of Acts. Theophilus Lindsey (Sequel, 
p. 203) quotes Chrysostom as saying, in one of his Homilies, that " Paul 
nt Athens flatly calls Christ a man, and nothing more; " and that, in relation 
to their conduct towards both Jews and Gentiles, " the apostles use a con- 
descending method and management, the economy of compliance ; " that is, 
though they believed in the essential Deity of Christ, the apostles, for pru- 
dential reasons, concealed this important truth from those to whom they 
announced the gospel. Erasmus, Calmet, and other Koman Catholics, 
make concessions of a similar kind. 



NOT DIVULGED IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 361 

But such acknowledgments are not confined either to the ancient fathers 
or to members of the Papal Church. In a Sermon on the " Tendencies of 
Intellectual Preaching," delivered before the General Convention of Con- 
gregational Ministers of Massachusetts, May 26, 1853, Dr. John Todd, of 
Pittsfield, says (p. 31) that St. Paul, before the Areopagus, " made a great 
speech, a great intellectual effort," " but said not one word about the cross 
of Christ; " and that " the results " of that " master's speech " were — " oh, 
how poor! " That is, unless we misunderstand the drift of the remark, — 
by declaring to the Athenians the oneness and paternity of the Divine Being, 
the sole Originator and Governor of the universe; his goodness and mercy 
in sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world to awaken all men to repent- 
ance and spiritual worship; and his equity in constituting one who shared 
in all the sinless affections of humanity the Judge of the human race, certi- 
fying this appointment by raising his Messenger and Representative from 
the dead, — the great Apostle of the Gentiles, in propounding these sublime 
and beneficent principles to the idolatrous and the sceptical Athenians, 
made a sad mistake, because, instead, he did not discourse on innate depra- 
vity, a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, the incarnation of the second of 
these persons, and the modern doctrine of the atonement. 

The objection you have made against the doctrine of Christ's divine 
nature, from its not being more dwelt upon in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, has often presented itself to me ; and various are the answers 
which have occurred to me. Among others, one which I met with a 
few days since in one of Lord Bolingbroke's Essays seemed reasonable. 
He thinks it natural (and I like to quote his opinion, as he is a sort 
of neutral), that St. Paul, when addressing the Gentiles, should have 
reserved the doctrine of the Trinity for their future instruction, lest he 
should seem, in any degree, to countenance their favorite polytheism. 
When they were established in their belief of Christ's divine legation, 
he would then proceed to unfold this mystery to them. — BlSHOP 
Loxgley : The Brothers 1 Controversy, pp. 104-5. 



In the three preceding sections, Trinitarians acknowledge that God did 
not reveal himself to the Hebrews as a Triune Being; that, with all the 
absurd notions of divine emanations which they derived from their inter- 
course with the Orientals, they knew nothing of a plurality of persons in the 
Godhead; that, as regards the nature of the Deity, the instructions which 
our Lord imparted were not different from those of Moses and the prophets, 
that he did not reveal the alleged Divinity of his person to his disciples; that 
the great object of the evangelists was to establish the Messiahship of their 
Master; and that the apostles, at least in their earlier preaching, divulged 
not the mysterious doctrines of Trinitarianism. Thus far, according to the 
showing of the orthodox themselves, is the dogma of the Trinity defective 
in Scriptural evidence 

31 



362 DOCTRINES BESIDES THOSE TAUGHT BY CHRIST 



SECT. V. — NO DOCTRINES ADDITIONAL TO THOSE PREVIOUSLY TAUGHT 
BY CHRIST, OR COMMUNICATED ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST Bt 
THE HOLY SPIRIT, INCULCATED IN THE EPISTLES. 

Thou, God, the Father! art invisible: but thy Son, who came to us in human 
form, was gazed on by human eyes, and he hath declared and exhibited thy character 
to the world ; he being the brightness of thy glory and the express image of thy 
person. — Dr. Thomas Chalmers. 

The gospel of our Saviour is defaced and obscured by affected 
mysteries, and paradoxes, and senseless propositions ; and Christ him- 
self, who was the brightness of his Father's glory and the express 
image of his person, who in the most plain and perspicuous manner 
declared the will of God to us, is represented with a thicker veil upon 
his face than Moses, and the glory of the second covenant is much 
more obscured with a mist of words than the first was with types and 
figures. This will appear to any man who shall observe what strange 
interpretations are commonly made of those texts of Scripture, espe- 
cially in St. Paul's Epistles, wherein Christ is mentioned ; what absurd 
propositions are built on them, what pernicious consequences drawn 
from them, to defeat the great ends of Christ's appearing in the flesh. 
— Dr. William Sherlock : Knowledge of Christ, pp. 1, 2. 

As for the Epistles, they do chiefly contain confirmations and 
illustrations of things which are recorded in the Gospels, and repeated 
persuasions to the practice of that holiness which is recommended by 
them. — Dr. Thomas Bennet : Confutation of Popery, p. 49. 

We must not regard the Epistles as communications of religious 
doctrines not disclosed before ; as displaying the perfection of a system 
of which merely the rude elements had been indicated in the writings 
of the four evangelists. This address of our Lord to his apostles 
[John xvi. 12, 13] is commonly alleged in support of the assertion, 
that additional doctrines were to be propounded in the Epistles. That 
such cannot be the meaning of the passage, the preceding inquiry as 
to the several articles of Christian belief has proved. To what par- 
ticulars, then, did our Saviour allude ? That Christ was to be a light 
to lighten the Gentiles no less than the glory of the people of Israel ; 
that the peculiar privileges of the Jews were at an end ; that the Sama- 
ritan, the Greek, and the Barbarian were to stand on a level with the 
Israelite in the Christian church; that Cb-ist did not purpose to 



NOT INCULCATED IN THE EPISTLES. 363 

enthrone himself in worldly sovereignty, and to constitute his apostles 
the great men of the earth ; that it was not his will to restore at that 
time the kingdom to Israel. The post, then, which the Epistles 
occupy in the sacred depository of revelation is not that of communi- 
cations of new doctrines. They fill their station as additional records, 
as inspired corroborations, as argumentative concentrations, as instruc- 
tive expositions, of truths already revealed, — of commandments 
already promulgated. In the explication of moral precepts, the 
Epistles frequently enter into large and highly beneficial details. — 
Abridged from George Townsend : The New Testament Arranged, 
part xii. note 10. 

But this writer maintains that the doctrine of a Triune God, and of the 
Deity of Christ, was revealed in the Old Testament and in the Gospels. 

The latest writings of these three great apostles — Paul, Peter, 
and John — contain no traces of any other more mysterious doctrines 
than they had received from our Lord, and taught to their first con- 
verts at the beginning of the gospel It may be safely said, 

that whatever we find in the New Testament, as to a gradual com- 
munication of Christian truth, relates to this one point, — that the 
disciples were to be led on gently to a full sense of the unimportance 
of the ceremonies of the Jewish law. Christianity was given complete, 
as to its own truths, from the beginning of the gospel ; but the abso- 
lute sufficiency of these truths, and the needlessness of any other 
system as joined with them, was to be learned only by degrees ; and, 
unhappily, it never was learned fully. — Dr. Thomas Arnold : Tlie 
Church, Hi. ; in Miscellaneous Works, pp. 35-7. 

Christ had many things to say of his doctrine which the disciples 
were not then in a condition to understand. But he was just about 
to leave them ; and therefore he pointed them to the Spirit of Truth, 
which was to unfold all the truth he had proclaimed. It was -not to 
announce any new doctrine, but to open the truth of his doctrine, 
to glorify him in them, by developing the full sense of what he had 
taught them. — Augustus Neaxder on John xvi. 12-14 ; in Life 
of Jesus Christ, p. 401. 

As we have already noticed, some theologians have thought that our 
Lord did not teach the doctrines which are now called orthodox, because 
his disciples wer3 not as yet able to receive them, but that he left these 
doctrines to be imparted by the Holy Spirit to the apostles, and by them 
to be developed in their oral and written discourses. We have, however, no 
reason to believe, that the only -begotten Son, who was, commissioned to 



364 DOCTRINES BESIDES THOSE TAUGHT BY CHRIST 

reveal the will of the Father, concealed, while on earth, any of the essential 
principles of his religion; but rather, on the contrary, that he had made 
known all things which he had heard of the Father, John i. 18; xv. 15. The 
"many things " which he says (chap. xvi. 12) his disciples were not capa- 
ble of bearing did not at all relate to the essence of God, of himself, or of 
the Holy Ghost, respecting which the apostles never speak; but, as the 
words are interpreted by the best Trinitarian commentators, to the abolition 
of the ceremonial law, the rejection of the Jewish nation, and the calling of 
the Gentiles, — matters which Jesus had indeed sufficiently intimated, but 
had not openly or directly communicated. In his " Illustrations of the Truth 
of the Christian Religion," pp. 215-16, Bishop Maltby well remarks: " The 
universality of the new dispensation, the qualifications of its future mem- 
bers, added to the demolition of the temple at Jerusalem, with the ruin of 
the Jewish polity, might have made a nation, not entirely blinded by former 
views, understand that the law was to be absorbed in the gospel. This, 
however, was not the case. . . This was one of the most delicate points upon 
which the discourses of our Lord could turn; yet even this offensive truth 
he did not entirely conceal, though he touched upon it with the utmost 
circumspection." 

No one perhaps will maintain that there is any new truth of Chris 
tianity set forth in the Epistles ; any truth, I mean, which does not 
presuppose the whole truth of human salvation by Jesus Christ, as 
already determined and complete. The Epistles clearly imply that 
the work of salvation is done. They repeat and insist on its most 
striking parts ; urging chiefly on man what remains for him to do, now 
that Christ has done all that God purposed, in behalf of man, before 
the foundation of the world. Let the experiment be fairly tried; 
let the inveterate idea, that the Epistles are the doctrinal portion of 
Scripture, be for a while banished from the mind ; and let them be 
read simply as the works of our fathers in ,the faith, — of men who 
are commending us rather to the love of Christ than opening our 
understanding to the mysteries of divine knowledge ; and, after such 
an experiment, let each decide for himself, whether the practical or 
the theoretic view of the Epistles is the correct one. For my part, 
I cannot doubt but that the decision will be in favor of the practical 
character of them. The speculating theologian will perhaps answer 
by adducing text after text from an Epistle, in which he will contend 
that some dogmatic truth, some theory or system, or peculiar view 
of divine truth, is asserted. But " what is the chaff to the wheat ? " 
I appeal from the logical criticism of the apostle's words to their 
apostolical spirit, — from Paul philosophizing to Paul preaching and 
entreating and persuading. And I ask, whether it is likely that an 



NOT INCULCATED IN THE EPISTLES. 365 

apostle would have adopted the form of an epistolary communication 
for imparting mysterious propositions to disciples with whom he 
enjoyed the opportunity of personal intercourse, and to whom he had 
already " declared the whole counsel of God ; " whether, in preaching 
Christ, he would have used a method of communicating truth which 
implies some scientific application of language, — an analysis, at least, 
of propositions into their terms, — in order to its being rightly under- 
stood. And I further request it may be considered whether it was 
not by such a mode of inference from the Scripture language, as 
would convert the Epistles into textual authorities on points of con- 
troversy, that the very system of the scholastic theology was erected. — ■ 
Bishop Hampden : Bampton Lectures, pp. 374-5. 

The Epistles of St. Paul were manifestly directed to different 
churches, and were intended merely to silence doubts or answer 
difficulties proposed by them, and also to correct and amend some 
accidental or local corruptions ; and, if we examine them carefully, we 
shall find that the greater portion of our most important dogmas, in- 
stead of St. Paul's defining and explaining them, are only occasionally, 
parenthetically, and as illustrations, introduced. — Cardinal Wiseman : 
Lectures on the Doctrines of the Catholic Churchy vol. i. p. 59. 

We cannot believe, as Schneckenburger does, that James wrote the 
Epistle at a time when Christianity had not thoroughly penetrated his 
spiritual life ; because there is no proof that his doctrinal views were 
enlarged at a later period. Nor do we imagine, that any of the 
apostles, after the day of Pentecost, became still more enlightened in 
their view of divine things. Their doctrinal development seems com- 
plete after that crisis. — Dr. Samuel Davidson : Introduction to the. 
New Testament, vol. iii. p. 315. 



Agreeably to the extracts made in pp. 351-5, many eminent Trinitarians 
distinctly confess that our Lord was reserved in his communications respect- 
ing the alleged Divinity of his nature; or, in other words, that he did not 
inculcate the contradictory doctrine of his equality and identity with the 
Father and the Holy Ghost. In this and the preceding section (p. 356, sqq.\ 
we have shown, from other authorities equally orthodox and respectable, 
that the apostles did not promulgate any new or additional truths : whence 
it indisputably follows, that, if the writers quoted have taken a proper view 
of the subject, — as, with some slight abatements from expressions neces- 
sarily used by Trinitarians, there is every reason to believe that they have, 
— neil her Jesus Christ nor his apostles taught the popular dogma of th*» 
Trinity. 

31* 



866 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 



SECT. VI. — A TRIUNE GOD, AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST, NOT 
DOCTRINES OF EXPRESS REVELATION. 

It is reasonable to expect, that those doctrines which form the leading articles of 
any system should be plainly stated in the book which professes to make that system 
known. — Dr. Wardlaw. 

The more you recede from the Scriptures by inferences and consequences, the 
more weak and dilute are your positions. — Lord Bacon. 

The word " homoousian " is not found in the Sacred Writings j and 
therefore, from these alone, what the Arians deny cannot be taught or 

proved, except by inference If the name " God " is clearly 

added to the Holy Spirit in the canonical books, as it is frequently 
annexed to the Father, rarely to the Son, in the Gospels and Epistles, 
I shall acknowledge myself mistaken. — Erasmus : Opera Omnia, 
torn. ix. pp. 1034, 1173. 

The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, the equality of 
the three persons in one substance, and the distinction of the same 
by relative properties, are not expressed in the Sacred Writings. — 
Melchior Canus : TheoL, lib. iii. c. 3, fund. 2 ; apud Sandium, p. 5. 

It is to be observed, that certain articles are set before us as neces- 
sary to faith and salvation, but which are not expressly and clearly 
contained in the Sacred Books, and which cannot be infallibly deduced 
from them ; and are therefore admitted only because the ancient and 
primitive church received them in this sense in councils and creeds, 
and in the writings of the fathers. I will subjoin examples : 1st, We 
believe that God is one in essence and substance, and three in per- 
sonality and subsistence ; but Scripture does not expressly open up 
this distinction, or show it by undoubted inference, &c. — Masenius : 
Medit Concord, ; apud Sandium, pp. 7, 8. 

It is nowhere, we confess, said expressly, and in so many words, 
" The Holy Spirit is the Most High God." — Herman Witsius : 
Dissertations on the Creed, Diss, xxiii. 16. 

Similarly, Jeremy Taylor, in Works, vol. xiii. pp. 143-4, who, with 
Witsius and other Trinitarians, means, of course, by the " Holy Spirit," a 
third person in the Godhead. In vol. vi. p. 510, the bishop, with great good 
sense, says what is very applicable to the subject of the present section: 
'* God hath plainly and literally described all his will, both in belief and 
practice, in which our essential duty, the duty of all men, is concerned. . . . 
In plain expressions we are to look for our duty, and not in the more secret 
places and dark corners of the Scripture." 



NOT EXPRESSLY REVEALED. 367 

Our belief in the Trinity, the co-eternity of the Son of God with 
his Father, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, 
. . . these, with such other principal points, . . . are in Scripture nowhere 
to be found by express literal mention ; only deduced they are out of 
Scripture by collection. — Richard Hooker : Ecclesiastical Polity, 
book i. chap. xiv. 2 ; in Works, vol. i. p. 187. 

There are many things, which, although they are not read expressly 
and definitely in Holy Scripture, yet, by the common consent of all 
Christians, are attained from it. For instance, " That in the ever- 
blessed Trinity three distinct persons are to be worshipped, — Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, — and that each of these is very God, and yet 
that there is only one God ; that Christ is deavdpunoc, very God and 
very man in one and the same person." — Bishop Beveridge ; apud 
Tracts for tlie Times, No. 77, in vol. iii. p. 30. 

It must be owned, that the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is proposed 
in our Articles, our Liturgy, our Creeds, is not in so many words 
taught us in the Holy Scriptures. What we profess in our prayers 
we nowhere read in Scripture, — that the one God, the one Lord, is 
not one only person, but three persons in one substance. There is no 
such text in the Scripture as this, that " the Unity in Trinity, and the 
Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped." No one of the inspired writers 
hath expressly affirmed, that in the Trinity none is afore or after other, 
none is greater or less than another, but the whole three persons are 
co-eternal together and co-equal. But, &c. — Bishop Smalridge : 
Sixty Sei-mons ; No. XXXLH. p. 348. 

It is not pretended that these doctrines [the Divinity of Christ and 
the Holy Ghost] are plainly contained in every text of Scripture which 
speaks of them, but only that in some one text or more they are pro- 
posed to us convincingly and clearly ; and, if a truth be once delivered 
so clearly as to leave no doubt, it is the same thing to us, who acknow- 
ledge the divine authority of all parts of Scripture, as if it were many 
times there repeated. For example, were there no other text for the 
proof of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in the sense in which the 
church of God hath always professed to believe it, but that only where 
our Saviour commands his disciples to " baptize in the name of the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost" (Matt, xxviii. 19), or that 
where St. John speaks of the "three witnesses in heaven" (1 John 
v. 7), either of these texts would be sufficient to make that doctrine 
an evident part of Scripture, though, in all the other passages usually 
produced for it, it should be allowed to be expressed obscurely 



368 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

Again : Neither is it pretended that these doctrines are anywhere, 
throughout the whole Bible, expressed with the utmost degree of 
evidence and clearness which words are anyways possibly capable of, 
but only that they are so expressed that an honest, impartial mind 
cannot well miss the sense of them. It might have been said, indeed, 
in so many words, that Christ and the Holy Spirit were, from all 
eternity, distinct from the Father, and, together with him, one God 
blessed for ever, and equally the objects of our religious worship and 
service. But, though this be not said there in so many terms, it is 
said, however, in such as an unbiased, well-meaning man cannot mis- 
take. — Bishop Atterbury : Sermons and Discourses ; No. X. in 
vol. iii. p. 157-8. 

Here it is distinctly conceded, that the Trinity, and the Deity of Christ 
and of the Holy Ghost, are not anywhere expressed in the Bible with the 
utmost evidence and clearness; though at the same time it is implied, that, 
in some one text or more, they are delivered so clearly as to leave, in the 
minds of those who acknowledge the divine authority of all parts of Scrip- 
ture, no doubt of the truth of these doctrines. Two passages, unquestionably 
the clearest that could be found, are adduced by way of example ; namely, 
Matt, xxviii. 19, which contains the formula of baptism; and 1 John v. 7, 
which speaks of three heavenly witnesses. The very citing, however, of 
such texts is, we think, a tacit acknowledgment that there is not one pas- 
sage in the whole compass of the Bible — from the first verse of Genesis to 
the last in the Apocalypse — which, with the slightest degree of clearness, 
expresses the proposition, that there are three persons in one God. We do 
not deny, that, by taking for granted the truth of the doctrine of the Deity 
of Christ, and of another person different from the Father and the Son, we 
may, with some show of reason, suppose a reference made in Matt, xxviii. 19 
and 1 John v. 7 to that doctrine ; without, however, having good ground for 
deducing it from thence. But it seems impossible for any man, with a duo 
regard to propriety of language, to assert that Christ, in the former passage, 
and John, or his interpolator, in the latter, designed to express, even with 
the lowest degree of " clearness," that the Father is God, the Son is God, 
and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet they are not three Gods, but one God. 
See pp. 10, 11, 218-19 [4], 225 [9], 357-8, 371. 

The texts here spoken of will be considered more at length, in their 
respective places, in future volumes. 

I said, and I still say, that it was their common principle [the prin- 
ciple of the Platonizing fathers], that the existence of the Son flows 
necessarily from the divine intellect exerted on itself. I showed how 
the Son's eternity will follow from this principle. And I discovered, 
what indeed I might have concealed, that I myself concur in this 
principle with the Platonists j for I said that it seems to me to be 



.COT EXPRESSLY REVEALED. 369 

founded in Scripture, by which I meant not to assert that it is so 
expressly declared in Scripture, that 1 would undertake to prove it by 
the Scriptures to others, in the same manner that I would undertake 
to prove that the world was created by Jesus Christ. . . . Upon such 
points, the evidence of Holy Scripture is, indeed, the only thing that 
amounts to proof. — Bishop Horsley : Disq. IV., Tracts, pp. 460-1. 

In the same disquisition, the learned bishop soundly berates Dr. Priestley 
for his ignorance, it. not knowing that this demonstration of the Son's eter- 
nal existence had been laid down not only by some of the Platonic fathers, 
but by the Romish church after the Council of Trent, and also by Melanc- 
thon. Though evidently a favorite opinion of the bishop's, he has the 
good sense to make no attempt to prove it from the Bible, but rather ac 
knowledges that it is not " expressly declared in Scripture." 

It may startle those who are but acquainted with the popular 
writings of this day, yet I believe the most accurate consideration of 
the subject will lead us to acquiesce in the statement as a general truth, 
that the doctrines in question [that is, the doctrines of the Trinity, the 
incarnation, and the atonement] have never been learned merely from 
Scripture. Surely the Sacred Volume was never intended, and was 
not adapted, to teach us our creed. However, certain it is, that we 
can prove our creed from it, when it has once been taught us, and in 
spite of individual producible exceptions to this general rule. From 
the very first, the rule has been, as a matter of fact, for the church to 
teach the truth, and then appeal to the Scripture in vindication of its 
own teaching ; and, from the first, it has been the error of heretics to 
neglect the information provided for them, and to attempt of them- 
selves a work to which they are unequal, — the eliciting a systematic 
doctrine from the scattered notices of the truth which Scripture con- 
tains. — John Henry Newman : Arians of the Fourth Century* 
p. 55 ; apud Wiseman's Lectures, vol. i. p. 1 13. 

The sublime truths which it [the Athanasian Creed, so called] con- 
tains are not expressed in the language of Holy Scripture ; no? could 
they possibly have been so expressed, since the inspired writers were 
not studious minutely to expound inscrutable mysteries. Neither can 
it plead any sanction from high antiquity, or even traditional authority ; 
since it was composed many centuries after the time of the apostles, 
in a very corrupt age of a corrupt church, and composed in so much 
obscurity that the very pen from which it proceeded is not certainly 
known to us. — George Waddington : History oj the Churchf 
pp. 220-1. 



370 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

This doctrine [that of a Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead] is not 
dogmatically revealed to us in any express sentence setting it forth to 
our belief in so many formal terms; but results rather, as a real truth 
of revelation, from the concurrent evidence of a variety of passages, in 
which the Deity is represented as performing offices for the good of 
man under three distinct hypostases or persons. — Bishop Hampden : 
Essay on the Philosophical Evidence of Chi'istianity, pp. 158-9. 

How can a doctrine be called u a real truth of revelation," when it is the 
result merely of our own reasonings from a collection of passages, which, if 
they proved any thing in the Trinitarian direction, would prove either too 
much or too little for Trinitarianism, — either that the Deity bore only 
three relations to his creatures, whereas he is represented in Scripture as 
sustaining a great variety of characters ; or that he manifested himself to 
men as three distinct Beings or Gods, in opposition to the united voices of 
nature and revelation ? For, unless Holy Writ expressly and unambiguously 
declares that three distinct divine persons constitute only one God, we must 
infallibly be led, by the course of reasoning adopted, to one or the other of 
the alternatives mentioned. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is rather a doctrine of inference and 
of indirect intimation, deduced from what is revealed respecting the 
Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and intimated in the notices 
of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, in the form of baptism, and in 
some of the apostolic benedictions, than a doctrine directly and expli- 
citly declared We have now come to the limit of explicit 

revelation, and are entering upon the region of reason and inference. 
... I admit that we have not the same clear fight to conduct us which 
we have hitherto enjoyed. I admit that a doctrine of inference ought 
never to be placed on a footing of equality with a doctrine of direct 
and explicit revelation. It is very obvious, that, in so far as our belief 
of any doctrine is the result of inference, it is not an exercise of faith 
in the testimony of God, but in the accuracy of our own reasoning. . . 
That the Holy Spirit is a distinct person from the Father and the Son 
seems to be removed one step from a direct, explicit revelation, by 
the necessity of previously determining that a being capable of willing, 
choosing, designing, commanding, forbidding, of loving, being dis- 
pleased or grieved, and other particulars of a similar nature, is to be 
regarded as a person. That there are three persons in the Godhead 
is a second remove from explicit, direct revelation ; because, after 
defining what we mean by a person, and finding that the Father is 
thus determined to be a person, and also the Son and the Spirit, while 



NOT EXPRESSLY REVEALED. 371 

yet we believe that there is only one God, we infer from the whole 
that there are three persons in one God. — James Darlile : Jesus 
Christ the Great God our Saviour, pp. 81, 369. 

What shall we say, when we consider that a case of doctrine, neces- 
sary doctrine, the very highest and most sacred, may be produced 
where the argument lies as little on the surface of Scripture — where 
the proof, though most conclusive, is as indirect and circuitous — as that 
for Episcopacy, viz., the doctrine of the Trinity ? Where is this solemn 
and comfortable mystery formally stated in Scripture, as we find it in 
the creeds ? Why is it not ? Let a man consider whether all the 
objections which he urges against the Scripture argument for Epis- 
copacy may not be turned against his own belief in the Trinity. It is 
a happy thing for themselves that men are inconsistent ; yet it is 
miserable to advocate and establish a principle, which, not in their own 
case indeed, but in the case of others who learn it of them, leads to 

Socinianism A person who denies the apostolical succession 

of the ministry, because it is not clearly taught in Scripture, ought, I 
conceive, if consistent, to deny the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, which 
is nowhere literally stated in Scripture. ... If the Lord's Supper is 
never distinctly called a sacrifice, or Christian ministers are never 
called priests, still let me ask, is the Holy Ghost ever expressly called 
God in Scripture ? Nowhere : we infer it from what is said ; we com- 
pare parallel passages. — Oxford or Anglican Doctors : Tracts 
for the Times, No. 45, in vol. i. p. 4; and No. 85, in vol. v. p. 11. 

The Bible tells us of the Trinity in separate portions only j for out 
of the single propositions it has not even formed any general and 
conjunct proposition that is comprehensive of them all, the only sem- 
blance of this being contained in that verse of the three bearing record 
in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and those three 
being one ; which, by the generality of critics, is now admitted to 
have been the importation of a formal deliverance from some of the 
compends of orthodoxy. — Dr. Thomas Chalmers : Institutes of 
Theology, vol. ii. (Posthumous Works, vol. viii.) p. 435. 

This doctrine [the doctrine of the Trinity] does not strictly belong 
to the fundamental articles of the Christian faith ; as appears suffi- 
ciently evident from the fact, that it is expressly held forth in no one 
particular passage of the New Testament ; for the only one in wliich 
this is done — the passage relating to the three that bear record 
(1 John v.) — is undoubtedly spurious, and in its ungenuine shape 
testifies to the fact how foreign such a collocation is from the style of 



372 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

the New-Testament Scriptures. We find in the New Testament no 
other fundamental article besides that of which the apostle Paul says, 
that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, the annunciation 
of Jesus as the Messiah ; and Christ himself designates, as the founda- 
tion of his religion, the faith in the only true God, and in Jesus Christ 
whom he hath sent, John xvii. 3. What Paul styles distinctively the 
mystery relates in no one instance to what belongs to the hiddep 
depths of the divine essence, but to the divine purpose of salvation 
which found its accomplishment in a fact. But that doctrine presup- 
poses, in order to its being understood in its real significancy for the 
Christian consciousness, this fundamental article of the Christian faith ; 
and we recognize therein the essential contents of Christianity, summed 
up in brief, as may be gathered from the determinate form which is 
given to Theism by its connection with this fundamental article. It is 
this doctrine by which God becomes known as the original Fountain 
of all existence ; as he by whom the rational creation, that had become 
estranged from him, is brought back to the fellowship with him ; and 
as he in the fellowship with whom it from thenceforth subsists, — the 
threefold relation in which God stands to mankind, as primal ground, 
mediator, and end ; Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier ; in which three- 
fold relation the whole Christian knowledge of God is completely 
announced. — Augustus Neander : General History of the Church, 
vol. i. p. 572. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is not a fundamental article of the Christian 
religion, for it is not expressed in any one passage of the New-Testament 
Scriptures; but a belief in the only true God, and in Jesus Christ whom 
he hath sent, is the very foundation of Christianity, and pervades these 
writings. So says Neander. Should not, therefore, the " Christian con- 
sciousness " accept the fundamental article of the Christian faith, which 
forms the great principle of Unitarianism, and reject the very idea of there 
being three persons, individuals, agents, beings, characters, or relations, in 
one God? 

It must be recollected that the Scriptures do not furnish, ready 
formed, a systematic and scientific statement of the doctrine in 
question [the doctrine of the Trinity]. — Professor Shedd : Intro 
ductory Essay to Coleridge 's Works, vol. i. pp. 41-2. 

To solve the problem, how a dogma which is not systematically stated 
in the Scriptures could be derived from them, the learned professor says 
that " the orthodox mind" brought into the controversy with the " hetero- 
dox" "an antecedent interpreting idea.'? He adds, however, what we 



NOT EXPRESSLY REVEALED. 373 

migLt expect from a Trinitarian who has uttered an unwelcome admission, 
that this idea of the Trinity was " not entirely independent of the Scrip- 
tures.'* 

The proper inquiry would seem to be, What view of this matter 
[the divine Tripersonality] is, on the whole, most in accordance with 
the teaching of Scripture? In the absence of any direct positive 
testimony on the point, what may be fairly and legitimately inferred 
from what the Bible does affirm respecting the Divine Being? — 
Joseph Haven, Jun., in the New Englander for February, 1850 ; 
vol. viii. (new series, vol. ii.) p. 2. 

Though he regards the doctrine of the Trinity as one merely of inference, 
this writer says that the Scriptures, in the plainest terms, assert the Unity 
ot God, and the Divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. 



We opened this section with an appropriate motto from Dr. Wardlaw's 
14 Discourses on the Socinian Controversy," and would close it with the 
equally appropriate remarks of Dr. Chalmers (" Institutes of Theology,'* 
book iii. chap. ix. § 23, 28), adding a few words by way of illustration: "In 
every book of moral or doctrinal instruction, it is natural to expect that the 
most important truth will be the most pervading; that just in proportion to 
its value will be the frequency of its recurrence, or the number of passages 
wherewith, by direct avowal or by implication and allusion, it is in any way 
interwoven. . . . Like the cheap and common beauties of nature, will not 
the great qualities of Christian truth both be so placed and so disseminated 
that the eye might easily see and the hand might readily apprehend 
them?" 

To apply the remarks of these eminent writers : From the concessions 
made, it has been seen that the doctrine of a Triune God is not " plainly 
stated " in the Bible; that it is not " so placed and so disseminated that the 
eye may easily see and the hand readily apprehend " it; that, in short, it is 
a doctrine of mere inference, and not of express revelation, there being no 
passage in the Sacred Writings in which it is expressly mentioned. But, 
if this doctrine was true, and was of so astonishing a character as to be 
entirely out of the province of reason to discover it, as is almost universally 
admitted, it would surely be u reasonable " and " natural to expect " that it 
would " pervade " the Bible, not only " by implication and allusion," so 
readily taken for granted when the mind of a reader is prepossessed with 
the value of an hypothesis, but by " direct avowal ; " and " that just in pro- 
portion to its value" would "be the frequency of its recurrence," in terms 
as clear and express, at least, as those of human creeds and confessions; 
rendering altogether unnecessary the laborious process of collecting and 
collating passages, some of them of a dark and dubious character, and draw- 
ing from them conclusions mysterious and unintelligible, if not revolting to 
reason. 

32 



374 THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD 



SECT. VII. — THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD, AND OF THE DEIT* 
OF CHRIST, CANNOT BE PROVED FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE. 

They [the proofs] had need be both full and clear, before a doctrine of this nature 
[that of the Trinity] can be pretended to be proved by them. — Bishop Burnet. 

I hope the Romanists will not disadvantage the catholic cause so much as to 
confess that the Godhead of Christ . . . cannot be proved by Scripture, and that the 
fathers were forced to fly to unwritten traditions for proof of it. — Dr. Richard Field. 

It would appear that the good doctor betrayed his own fears for the 
validity and soundness of the evidence in favor of the Deity of Christ, and 
therefore, as the orthodox themselves reason, of the Trinity in Unity; for, 
as we shall immediately show, Roman Catholics have often indeed " con- 
fessed that the Godhead of Christ, ,, with its accompanying dogmas, "cannot 
be proved by Scripture; " thus " disadvantaging" the cause of Trinitarian- 
ism, as acknowledged and deplored in the following passage by the excellent 
Jeremy Taylor, in " Dissuasive from Popery," part ii. book i. sect. iii. 1: — 

" I cannot but observe and deplore the sad consequents of the Roman 
doctors' pretension, that this 4 great mystery of godliness, God manifested 
in the flesh,' relies wholly upon unwritten traditions; for the Socinians, 
knowing that tradition was on both sides claimed in this article, please 
themselves in the concession of their adversaries, that this is not to be 
proved by Scripture. So they allege the testimony of Eccius, and Cardi- 
nal Hosius, one of the legates, presiding at Trent: i Doctrinam de trino et 
uno Deo, esse dogma traditionis, et ex Scriptura nulla ratione probari posse.' 
The same was affirmed by Tanner, and all that were on that side, in the 
conference at Ratisbon, by Hieronymus a S. Hyacintho, and others." 

Bishop Taylor here uses in the Trinitarian sense the phrase, " God 
manifested in the flesh;" referring it to the dogma of the incarnation of a 
being called God the Son, which Unitarians regard as entirely unscriptural. 

We believe the doctrine of a Triune God, because we have received 
it by tradition, though not mentioned at all in Scripture. — Abridged 
from Cardinal Hosius : Conf. Catkol. Fidei Christ, cap. 27. 

That the Holy Spirit should be adored, that the Son is consubstan- 
tial with the Father, and of the same nature, &c, we do not perceive 
so set forth in Scripture that heretics can be convinced without the 
church acting as interpreter. — Possevin ; apud Sandium, p. 5. 

Concerning the Trinity, whether there are three really distinct 
persons; concerning the eternal dfioovcna, the generation of the Son 
from the substance of the Father, the equality of the persons in the 
Godhead, the two natures in Christ, and the Deity of the Holy Spirit, 
the church ought to determine : ,the Scriptures cannot. — Coppen- 
STEIN ; apud Sandium, pp. 5, 6. 



CANNOT BE PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 375 

Those [the Lutherans and Calvinists] who bind themselves to 
Scripture alone, that is, to written words, and who do not set up any 
other rule or law of belief, sweat to no purpose, and are conquered by 
their own weapons, as often as they join battle with such pests [the 
Antitrinitarians] as conceal and defend themselves likewise with the 
language of Scripture alone. And we know from history that this 
frequently happened to them in the conferences and disputes into 
which they entered with the Photinians and the Arians. — Petavtus : 
Be Trin., lib. iii. cap. xi. § 9; Theol. Dog., torn. ii. p. 301. 

That the Son is of the same essence as the Father, or consubstan- 
tial with him, is not manifest in any part of Sacred Scripture, either 
in express words or by certain and immutable deduction. . . . Not in 
express language, because this phrase, " of the same essence," never 
occurs in the Sacred Writings ; nor by infallible deduction, because 
nothing of such a character can by any means rest on reason and 
Scripture which is at variance with Scripture itself, and the principles 

of reason They believe those matters which are propounded 

by Athanasius in the Creed on the Trinity, both as respects the dis- 
tinction of persons and of the divine nature, and the equality of its 
attributes, and as respects also the divine processions ; Christ begotten 
by the Father from eternity, the Holy Ghost not begotten, but pro- 
ceeding from both, nor only from either. These and other opinions 
of the Protestants no one can prove from irrefragable deduction from 
the Sacred Writings, the traditionary word of God being laid aside. 
This request has often been made, but no one has made it good. 
Scripture itself would in many places have seemed to exhibit the 
opposite, unless the church had taught us otherwise. — MASENIUS ; 
apud Sandium, pp. 9-11. 

It is obvious, that, if any articles are particularly necessary to be 
known and believed, they are those which point to the God whom we 
are to adore, and the moral precepts which we are to observe. Now, 
is it demonstratively evident, from mere Scripture, that Christ is God, 
and to be adored as such? Most modern Protestants of eminence 
answer no. — Dr. John Milner : End of Religious Controversy, 
Let. 9, p. 76. 

As to faith, we should be almost ready to retract every word that 
v;e have written, if a well-attested case could be proved to us of any 
one, left to learn religion from the Bible, having hence deduced the 
doctrine of the Trinity, or of one only God in three real persons ; or 
that of the Divinity of our Lord, in its true sense, as consubstantial to 



376 A TRIUNE GOD NOT PROVABLE FROM SCRIPTURE. 

the Father, as being one in person, and having two perfect natures. 
These are the two dogmas which the church has considered essentia] 
to salvation, and fundamental of all revealed religion; yet we feel 
confident that no single person has ever discovered these for himself 
in the Bible, and that they are only believed by Bible Christians 
(where they are believed) in consequence of a self-deceit or self- 
imposition in fancying that they hold on Scripture evidence what in 
reality they only maintain because they have been so taught in church, 
that is, on the evidence of their clergyman. — Dublin Review for 
October, 1852 ; as quoted in Christian Examiner for Jan, 1853. 



To the same purport, — according to Locke, in his " Commonplace 
Book," — Bellarmine, Gordonius Hunl.eius, Gretser, Tanner, Vega, 
and Wiekus. Several other Roman Catholics are referred to by Sandius 
(in his " Scriptura S. Trinitatis Revelatrix," pp. 4-17) as speaking to the 
same effect. 

It is a curious anomaly in the history of religious sects, that, in their 
discussions with Roman Catholics, Trinitarian Protestants are wont to con- 
tend earnestly for the due exercise of the intellectual powers in matters 
pertaining to theology and religion; but, in their zealous warfare with their 
fellow-Protestants the Unitarians, they not unfrequently accuse them of 
leaning too much to their own understandings, and of rejecting the plain 
instructions of Sacred Scripture, because, in the honest use of their rational 
faculties, the believers in the simple oneness of God have come to a conclu- 
sion different from theirs. More curious still, many of the very persons who 
thus act so inconsistently, are, as we have shown in the sixth section of the 
present chapter, obliged, from the force of truth, to acknowledge that 
the doctrines which they espouse, and which they assert to be essential to 
salvation, are not directly set forth in the pages of the Bible, but must be 
gathered by a sort of inferential proof, arising from the use, or rather from 
the abuse, of that reason which they so frequently represent as at war 
with the doctrines of Holy Writ. It is also a remarkable fact, that the 
Roman Catholic has often triumphed over his Protestant antagonist by 
demonstrating that the great principle of Protestantism — the right of indi- 
viduals to interpret Scripture, without resting on tradition and the authority 
of the church — inevitably leads to Unitarianism. Witness the discussions 
of the Bellarmines, the Petavii, and the Masenii, with the Trinitarian 
Reformers of their day; the Maguires, the Hugheses, the Frenches, and 
the Wisemans, with ministers of the Established Church of England; and the 
learned divines of the Puseyite school with the ;t evangelical " section of 
their own church. 



377 



CHAPTER VII. 

JOD IS ONE. — THE FATHER ONLY, THE TRUE GOD. 



SECT. I. — THE EXISTENCE OF A TRIUNE GOD NOT DISCERNIBLE BI 
THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 

What more could fright my faith than Three in One? — Dryden, 

By the light of nature we may discern the existence, the unity, and the 
providence of God, but not in respect to the Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit ; for the mystery of the Trinity is completely hidden from our 
natural light. — Salmeron : Commentarii, torn. iv. p. 505. 

From the principles of nature the Trinity cannot be made known 
to us. — Theodore Hackspan: Not a in Difficilia Scriptuia Loca, 
torn. i. p. 534. 

What is there in the whole Book of God that nature, at first sight, 
doth more recoil at than the doctrine of the Trinity ? How many do 
yet stumble and fall at it ! — Dr. John Owen : Divine Origin of the 
Scriptures, p. 132. 

Though the Divinity be as to his nature one in essence, yet that he 
is three in hypostasis we believe, not from any thing our reason dic- 
tates, but from the word of God, and therefore by an act of pure 
faith ; nor discovered to the world by any light of nature, but super- 
naturally revealed in time, and necessarily, since revealed, to be 
believed. — John Evelyn: The True Religion, vol. i. p. 119. 

We cannot subscribe to the opinion of such of our theologians as 
have endeavored to prove, to confirm, and by tedious similitudes to 

illustrate, this mystery, by arguments derived from nature The 

doctrine of the Trinity, we confess, is a mystery which man, how 
distinguished soever for wisdom and industry, could not discover by 
the mere consideration of himself and the creatures. — Herman 
Witsius : Dissertations on the Apostles 1 Creed, Diss. vL 5, 15. 

32* 



378 THE EXISTENCE OF A TRIUNE GOD 

" God " is the name of a being absolutely perfect ; and the light of 
nature teaches us that there is but one such Supreme Being, or but 
one God ; but nature does not teach us that there are three divine 
persons, who are this one God. — Dr. Wm. Sherlock : Vindication 
of the Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 216. 

Thus much I confess, that, take the thing [that one nature may 
subsist in three persons] abstract from divine revelation, there is 
nothing in reason able to prove that there is such a thing ; but, &c. — 
Br. Robert South : Sermons, vol. iv. p. 288. 

It is a vain attempt to go about to prove this [the doctrine of three 
persons in one divine essence] by reason ; for it must be confessed, 
that we should have had no cause to have thought of any such thing, 
if the Scriptures had not revealed it to us. — Bishop Burnet : 
Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. I. p. 42. 

The doctrine of the Trinity . . . cannot be learned from the light of 
nature ; for then we should certainly be able to behold some traces or 
footsteps thereof in the works of creation and providence, that so this 
might be understood thereby, as well as the power, wisdom, and 
goodness of God, as the cause is known by its effect. — Dr. Thomas 
Ridgley : Body of Divinity, vol. i. p. 230. 

Where is the people to be found, where the individual, who learned 
the doctrine of the Trinity from the works of nature? I cannot 
suppose it would ever have suggested itself to a single mind, had it 
not been communicated, probably among the earliest revelations of 
God. — Robert Hall : Letter 68 ; in Works, vol. iii. p. 274. 

But we have seen there is no evidence that ever such a revelation was 
made. 

If a man were to hold a protracted correspondence by letter with a 
stranger, that correspondence would reveal feeling, judgment, reason, 
passion, imagination, and all the other natural properties of the man ; 
because the contents of his person will both yield, and dominate in, 
the matter of the correspondence, and will thus appear in the revela- 
tion made by it. Now, the world of nature is to God's person what 
the letter is to man ; and is it not remarkable, that this world of nature 
— looked upon, studied, and lived in, for four thousand years — had 
awakened no suspicion or thought of a threefold nature in its Author 
(excepting perhaps in the questionable instance of the Platonic Trinity), 
and has not even to this day ? If there were any such constitutional 
metaphysical threeness in the divine nature, is it credible that an 
expression of God, so vast and manifold, would not have made even 



NOT DISCERNIBLE BY THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 379 

a conspicuous show of it ? I state no such conclusion. ... I state a 
simple fact, for which I am not responsible. — Horace Bushnell : 
Christ in Theology, p. 166. 

With all the temerity of speculation, it has been reserved, we 
believe, for the nineteenth century to demonstrate so abstruse and 
incomprehensible a doctrine as that of the Triune nature of God. It 
had been attempted before to show, that such a tenet was not incon- 
sistent with reason ; and so far as it is practicable, in this way, to 
remove the difficulties which the mind encounters in assenting, on 
mere authority, to a proposition which it can neither deny nor com- 
prehend, the effort were well enough. But now they have discovered 
that such a condition of Deity is not only rational, but necessary ; 
absolutely essential to eternal existence and the work of creation ; and, 
if their premises be correct, the most simple and obvious thing 
imaginable. The argument is presented by a recent author as follows : 
It first assumes, that any being, even the Self-existent, could not be 
conscious of its own existence, without the cognizance of some object 
extraneous to itself; and if not capable of self-consciousness, much 
less of creation, or any other act of Deity. Hence the necessity of 
the eternal existence of a second person, — of a contemplator and a 
contemplated, the Father and the Son. It next assumes, as a primary 
truth or an unquestionable premise, that the necessary two could not 
exist in harmony, in unity, without the intervention of a third as the 
medium of union ; and this brings us to the idea of a Trinity, abso- 
lutely, and in the nature of things, necessary. For this last point, — 
this doctrine of a spiritual mordant, — the intervention of a third 
substance, in order to effect a union, — what is this but metaphysical 
chemistry ? And, if chemistry is pre-eminently an empirical science, 
who has experimented thus far ? And did he conjure, or how confine 
spirits in his crucible ? What were the tests ? and where, pray show 
us, the laboratory of this modern alchemist ? And yet, grave doctors 
of theology gravely announce such dogmas for the edification of those 
who count it wisdom to wonder at the lofty strides which reason is 
taught to practise. But to return to the former part of this argument, 
— that self-consciousness is not possible without an apprehension of 
something besides self. Grant the truth of this premise, and how 
do we know it ? Who shall demonstrate it ? Or how was it discov- 
ered ? But is the premise true ? If it be, we have only to say, it is 
hugely at odds with common experience ; nor will it, without further 
light, appear to all to consist with the higher efforts of reason and 



380 A TRIUNE GOD NOT DISCERNIBLE FROM NATURE. 

metaphysical analysis. It is certainly at variance with the first princi* 
pies of the Cartesian philosophy. For that, in running down the 
celebrated anti-climax, — the dubito, cogito, sum, — arrives at a convic- 
tion of the Me, without even a suspicion of the Not Me ; it discovers 
and surveys the whole region of self-consciousness, in entire ignorance 
if that be not the universe. Nay, it next seriously doubts whether it 
be possible " by means of thought," that is, as we understand, by any 
process of abstract reasoning, to overstep this boundary, — to proceed 
from the inner to the outer, to advance from a consciousness of self to 
the knowledge of a second reality. What is this but a house divided 
against itself ? And let it fall. — Professor H. M. Johnson, in 
Methodist Quarterly Review for January, 1853 ; fourth series, vol v. 
pp. 32-3. 

In his Introductory Essay to Coleridge's Works (vol. i. pp. 42-3), Pro- 
fessor Shedd, while contending for what he calls " the position of the 
Christian theology, that, irrespective of His manifestation in the universe, 
ant' cedent to the creation, and in the solitude of his own eternity, God is 
personally self-conscious, and therefore Triune," and for the rationality of 
th( doctrine of the Trinity, which, he says, " contains the only adequate 
and final answer to the standing objection of Pantheism, viz., that an Infinite 
Being cannot be personal, because all personal self-consciousness implies 
limitation," confesses at the same time that " such abstruse and recondite 
speculation," namely, as to the necessity of a Trinity in the divine nature, 
" is very apt to run into " " the pantheistic conception of the Deity " which 
it is intended to destroy. 

If this be one of the results of investigations so daring and so irreve- 
rent, — and the professor himself refers as an example to " the Trinity of 
Hegel," — it is not surprising that " for the last two centuries," as he says 
(p. 41), "it has been customary among English and American theologians 
to receive the doctrine of the Trinity purely on the ground of its being 
revealed in Scripture " (or, which would be more correct, on the ground of 
its being deducible by reason from a combination of the elements of various 
texts); and that "attempts to establish its rationality have, in the main, 
been deprecated." 

See the section on the irrationality of the dogma of a Triune God, p. 317. 



In the last chapter, it was acknowledged by many divines belonging to 
orthodox churches, that a Trinity in Unity, or a Unity in Trinity, is not a 
doctrine of express revelation; and here it is admitted, that the same doc 
trine receives no countenance whatever from the light of reason and of 
nature. It will now be shown, from similar authorities, that the unity and 
self-existence of God constitute a fundamental principle of both natural 
and revealed religion. 



THE DIYINE UNITY A FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE. 381 



SECT, II. — THE UNITY OF GOD A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCII LE OF BOTH 
NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 

There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, 
a most pure spirit; invisible; without body, parts, or passions ; immutable, immense, 
eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, &c. — Westminster Divines. 

{ 1. Importance of the Doctrine of the Divine Unity. 

When we come to compare events, and to take them all into our 
minds at once ; when we observe that there is an unity of design in 
them all, considered collectively, — we ascribe them all ultimately to 

one great Intelligence, and consider him a person There is one 

thing never to be forgotten for a moment ; that is, the unity of God, 
Scripture and reason jointly proclaim there is but one God : however 
the proofs of the Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost may seem to 
interfere with this, nothing is to be allowed them but what is consistent 
with it. The divine nature, or substance, can therefore be but " on* 
substance ; " the divine power can be but " one power." — Dr. John 
Hey : Lectures in Divinity, vol. i. p. 8 j ii. pp. 250-1. 

The denial of that doctrine [the imity of God] would be an error 
of still more alarming magnitude than the denial of the distinction of 
persons in the Godhead There may be some diversity of opi- 
nion respecting the degree of certainty with which the doctrine may 
be learned by the light of nature ; but in the doctrine itself, that God 
IS one, as a doctrine fully certified by revelation, and according with 
every principle of enlightened reason, there is perfect agreement. — 
Dr. Ralph Wardlaw : Unitarianism Incapable of Vindication* 
pp. 99, 301. 

If he [Dr. Drummond] had taken the trouble to examine authentic 
documents of churches that believe that there are three persons in the 
Godhead, or the writings of persons who are held in any esteem by 
us, he would have found that the unity of God is always insisted upon 
as the very foundation of all religion. — James Carlile : Jesus Christ 
the Great God our Saviour, p. 28. 

Among all the different explanations [of the doctrine of the Trinity] 
which I have found, I have not met with any one which denied, or at 
least was designed to deny, the unity of God. All admit this to be 
a fundamental principle ; all acknowledge that it is designated in cha- 



382 THE UNITY OF GOD 

meters of light both in the Jewish and Christian revelations, and that 
to deny it would be the grossest absurdity as well as impiety. — Moses 
Stuart : Letters to Channing ; in Miscellanies, p. 15. 

In support of his assertion that all Christians admit the unity of God, 
Professor Stuart cites passages from creeds of different denominations, all 
of which expressly mention it as a primary object of belief. The fact can 
not be denied, and we rejoice in the universality of the acknowledgment; 
regarding this as a perpetual and a decisive testimony to the truth of the 
doctrine, and as proving it to be so consonant to the highest reason, and so 
clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures, as to forbid the possibility that any 
one, professing the Christian name, should, consciously and openly, affirm 
the existence of more Gods than one. But it is a fact equally undeniable, 
that orthodox writers usually speak of u the three persons in the Godhead n 
in language which involves the conception of three distinct and separate 
Minds or Beings, each of them as infinite, or, with a single exception, — 
that of self-existence, — as equal in all divine perfections ; and therefore 
implies a belief in three Gods, united by the harmony, and not by the iden- 
tity, of their wills, plans, and operations. Unless, indeed, Trinitarianism 
belies her own professions by frittering away the three persons, as she 
sometimes does, into three relations or nominal distinctions of the Absolute 
One, she must, from the very nature of her doctrine, speak of Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost as three equal or unequal Divinities; three Supreme Beings, 
or only one Supreme and two inferior Gods. 

We do not charge any of our orthodox brethren with impiety, or with a 
clear and distinct consciousness of belief in an unqualified Tritheism; for 
there is not one of them who would expressly assert the existence of three 
Gods. But that we have done no injustice to the mode in which the doc- 
trine of the Trinity is commonly understood and explained, is evident from 
the extracts made in pp. 280-3 and 289-91, to which might have been added 
a host of others; and from the complaints uttered on this subject by Trini- 
tarians themselves, — as by South, Coleridge, Stuart, Bushnell, &c: 
see pp. 284-9, 292-5. 

We take, as a first point, to be held immovably, the strict personal 

unity of God, — one mind, will, consciousness If our feeling is, 

at any time, confused by these persons or impersonations, we are to 
have it for a fixed, first truth, that God is, in the most perfect and 
rigid sense, one Being, — a pure intelligence, undivided, indivisible, 
and infinite ; and that whatever may be true of the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, it certainly is not true that they are three distinct con- 
sciousnesses, wills, and understandings. — Dr. Horace Bushnell : 
God in Christ t pp. 136, 176-7. 

The first portion of this extract we think perfectly sustained both by 
reason and revelations but, in reference to the latter, we do not hesitate to 



A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF TRUE RELIGION. 883 

§ay, in opposition to the eloquent and highly gifted writer, that, if the Bible 
be interpreted as any other book which is designed for the comprehension 
of men, — that is, interpreted in conformity with the universal usage of 
language, — no doctrine can be found to pervade the Scriptures more plainly 
than this: that the Father and the Son, the Sender and the Sent, the Lord 
and his Christ, the Almighty One prayed to and the dependent devout 
Petitioner, were and are distinct, separate intelligences, having each his 
own consciousness, will, and understanding, though morally united, — har- 
monious in affection, plan, and purpose; and it is because they are thus 
characterized in the New Testament, because they are clearly spoken of as 
distinct persons, agents, or beings, that we deem it inimical to the truth of 
revelation to represent these two as one and the same God. Dr. Bushnell, 
however, seems to us to be perfectly justified in intimating, that, as it is a 
first truth that God is, in the most rigid sense, one Being, it cannot be true 
that three distinct persons or intelligences, having separate consciousnesses 
and wills, — in other words, three beings, — are only one God. 

The first and most prominent thought, connected witt the great 
word " God," is, that he possesses existence which is underived and 
eternal. This is what natural and revealed religion mean by God. 
The idea of an eternal, independent Being is the most exalted con- 
ception the human mind can receive of the all-perfect Deity. He is 
one who exists prior to every other being, and derives his existence 
from no other. He is self-existent, and has the principle of life in 
himself. — Dr. Gardiner Spring: The Glory of Christ, vol L 
page 39. 

Dr. Spring's sentiments will, we suppose, recommend themselves to the 
mind of every intelligent man; and yet they will be found perfectly incom- 
patible with the orthodox dogma of three co-equal persons in one God. If, 
as the creeds assert, and as probably most Trinitarians believe, the Son and 
the Holy Ghost derived their existence and their attributes from the Father, 
— no matter in what way this derivation may be conceived and expressed, 
whether by the notion of Sonship or Spiration, of being begotten or having 
proceeded, in time or from eternity, by the will of the Father or by the con- 
templation of his own perfections, — the conclusion will irresistibly follow, 
that the two dependent persons are not, and cannot be, each God in the 
highest, the absolute, sense of the term, — cannot either be equal to Him, 
the self-existent Father, from whom they had their origin, or be one and the 
very same Being as that underived Cause of all things. If, according to 
another view of the Trinitarian mystery, the three divine persons — Father, 
Son, md Holy Ghost — are each a self-existent Being, and therefore each 
God in the most exalted sense of the word, they must, to all intents and 
purposes, be three Supreme and Infinite Gods ; which is an absurdity, 
and inconsistent alike with the dictates of reason, and with the whole tenor 
of the Patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian revelations. 



384 THE UNITY OF GOD 

\ 2. The Unity of God proved by Reason, and manifested vx thb 
Works of Creation. 

An evident and most natural consequence of this universal and 
necessary idea of a God, is his unity. All that mention the term 
" God " intend to convey by it the idea of the first, most exalted, 
necessarily existent, and infinitely perfect Being j and it is plain there 
can be but one Being endued with all these perfections. — Archbishop 
Leighton: Theological Lectures, Lect. 7; in Works, p. 571. 

God is a being absolutely perfect, unmade, or self-originated, and 
necessarily existing. ... It evidently appears that there can be but one 
such Being, and that unity, oneliness, or singularity, is essential to it; 
forasmuch as there cannot possibly be more than one supreme, more 
than one omnipotent, or infinitely powerful Being, and more than one 
Cause of all things besides itself. — Dr. R. Cud worth : Intellectual 
System of the Universe, vol. i. p. 282. 

It hath been alleged by divines and philosophers, with great judg- 
ment, that indeed the existence of a God is manifested to mankind in 
the high wisdom and the admirable contrivance that is seen in the 
whole and parts of the world. . . . There are a thousand significations, 
in the works of creation, that God is ; but not the least intimation by 
them, or any other ways, that there are more Gods than one. Seeing, 
therefore, the works of God were made to display his perfections to 
the rational part of the creation, we rightly infer, that, because those 
works discover to us only this, that there is a God, we ought to believe 
no farther than is declared to us, namely, that a God, or one God, there 
certainly is. . . . Of one such Mind or Spirit, the works of creation, so 
full of beauty, order, and design, are a clear demonstration ; but they 
show us not the least footsteps or track of more such spirits and 
minds. — Dr. Robert South : The Judgment of a Disinterested 
Person, pp. 50-1. 

The unity of the Godhead is a truth enstamped on the very nature 
of man, and may be as plainly proved from the light of nature as 
that there is a God. There can be no more than one Being who 
is without beginning, and who gave being to all other things : which 
appears from the very nature of the thing ; for if there are more Gods, 
then they must derive their being from him, and then they are a part 
of his creation, and consequently not Gods, for God and the creature 
are infinitely opposed to each other ; and since there is but one inde- 
pendent Being, who is in and of himself, and derives his perfections 



PROVED FROM THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 385 

from no other, therefore there can be but one God. . . Infinite perfec- 
tion being implied in the idea of a God, it is certain that it cannot 
belong to more than one; for, as it implies that this perfection is 
boundless, so it denotes that he sets bounds to the perfections of all 
others : therefore, if there are more Gods than one, their perfections 
must be limited, and consequently that which is not infinite is not 
God. And as infinite perfection implies in it all perfection, so it 
cannot be divided among many ; for then no being, that has only a 
part thereof, could be said to be thus perfect : therefore, since there is 
but one that is so, it follows that there is no other God besides him. . . 
There is but one Being who is, as God is often said to be, the best and 
the greatest: therefore, if there were more Gods than one, either one 
must be supposed to be more excellent than another, or both equally 
excellent. If we suppose the former of these, then he who is not the 
most excellent is not God j and if the latter, that their excellences are 
equal, then infinite perfection would be divided ; which is contrary to 
the idea thereof, as well as to what is expressly said by God, " To 
whom will ye liken me, or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One," Isa. 
xL 25. — Abridged from Dr. Thomas Bidgley : Body of Divinity, 
vol. L pp. 194-6. 

If there were any other self-existent Being besides that whose 
existence we have demonstrated, he must in all respects be equal to 
him ; for otherwise it would be natural to suppose some derivation or 
dependency, inconsistent with self-existence, and consequently with the 
hypothesis. To suppose such another Being is to limit the omnipo- 
tence of God ; for ... it seems he would be unable to act without his 
consent, at least tacitly implied ; and, if their volitions should in any 
respect contradict each other, which in things indifferent they might 
at least very possibly do, the one would be a restraint upon the other, 
and so neither would be omnipotent. . . . The unity of design, which 
seems to prevail in the works of nature, makes it reasonable to believe 
it had but one author, and that he operated in an uncontrolled manner. 
There is no reason from the light of nature to conclude that there are 
any more Deities than one, or indeed to imagine there are any more ; 
since one almighty and all-wise Being can do as much as a thousand 
such beings can do. — Dr. Philip Doddridge : Course of Lectures, 
part ii. prop, xxxix., or vol. L pp. 132-3. 

As authorities for these sentiments, the lecturer or his editors refer to 
Wilkins, Bishop Burnet, Le Cleuc, John Howe and Gbotius, as well 
as to several eminent Unitarians. 

33 






386 THE UNITY OF GOD 

So far as I know, all who have acknowledged one infinite God have 
regarded the acknowledgment of more as an absurdity. In this senti- 
ment have concurred the Patriarchs, Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, 
and all those modern infidels who have net denied the existence of 
such a God. These classes of men have, with one voice, renounced 
the idea of more than one such God. Such a general accordance, in 
men differing in other respects so widely, clearly indicates that the 
admission of one infinite God brings with it, to the human mind, 
serious difficulties against the admission of more ; and plainly implies 
that more cannot be admitted by the mind, without violence done to 
the understanding. . . . Although the proofs of the existence of God 
are complete, yet there is no proof of the existence of more than one 
God. The argument for the being of God, which I mentioned as 
exhibited in the happiest manner by Mr. Locke, proves unanswerably 
the being of one eternal, self-existent Cause, possessed of sufficient 
intelligence to contrive, and sufficient power to create, the universe of 
worlds, and all which it contains. The existence of one such Cause 
completely removes from the mind every difficulty, and satisfactorily 

accounts for every thing The unity of design and agency in 

creation and providence furnishes another argument in proof of the 
existence of but one God. So far as we are able to understand the 
works of creation and providence, we discern a general simplicity and 
harmony in the nature and operations of all things. Amid the in> 
mense complication which surrounds us, we perceive one set of laws, 
in accordance with which all things proceed in their course. The 
same causes produce uniformly the same effects in every place and 
period. Vegetables spring from the same seed, germinate by the same 
means, assume the same form, sustain the same qualities, exist through 
the same duration, and come to the same end. Animals also are 
born in one manner, and exhibit the same life, powers, and tendencies. 
Man has one origin, form, life, system of faculties, character, and 
termination. All things in this world are, in one regular manner, 
made subservient to his use and happiness ; and are plainly fitted by 
one design, and conducted by one agency, to this end. Day and night 
uniformly return by a single power, and with exact regularity. With 
the same regularity and simplicity, the seasons pursue their circuit. 
The sun shines, illuminates, warms, and moves the planets by a single 
law, and with exact uniformity. By one law, the planets keep theil 
orbits and perform their revolutions. The face of the heavens is but 
one, and the oldest sphere which is known presents to our view thf 



PROVED FROM THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 387 

same constellations which we now behold in the nightly firmament. 
Thus all things, so far as our knowledge extends, present to our view 
a single design, regularly executed by a single agency. But unity of 
design is a proof of one designer ; and unity of agency, of one agent. — 
Dr. Timothy Dwight : Sermon 4 ; in Theology Explained, vol. u 
pp. 115-16, 119. 

To prove the unity of this great Being, in opposition to a plurality 
of Gods, it is not necessary to have recourse to metaphysical abstrac- 
tions. It is sufficient to observe, that the notion of more than one 
Author of nature is inconsistent with that harmony of design which 
pervades her works ; that it explains no appearances, is supported by 
no evidence, and serves no purpose but to embarrass and perplex our 

conceptions There is but one such Being. To affirm there 

is more than one, without reason, must, by the very terms, be unrea- 
sonable. But no shadow of reason can be assigned for believing in a 
plurality of such beings ; because the supposition of one accounts for 
all that we see, as well, and even much better than the supposition of 
more. That there must be one underived, self-existent, eternal, and 
intelligent Cause, must of necessity be allowed, in order to account for 
what we know to exist ; but no reason can be assigned for supposing 
more. It is with the utmost propriety established as an axiom, that 
we ought in no case to assign more causes than will account for the 
effects. — Robert Hall : Modern Infidelity considered, and Notes 
of Sermons : in Works, vol. i. p. 26 ; iii. pp. 14, 15. 

It has been urged that unity of plan [in the laws of physical action] 
might result from the co-operation of several minds, powers, or agen- 
cies. But to suppose many causes, when one will suffice, is clearly 
unphilosophical ; and, besides this, the objection, however plausible 
when stated merely in an abstract form, will vanish the moment we 
reflect on the actual case of the material creation. When we consider 
. . . the immense multiplicity of physical arrangements, all so admirably 
harmonizing together; the infinite combination of adjustments, each 
arranged in exact relation to the other, as well as complete within 
itself, — we cannot but feel overwhelmed with the conviction, that to 
One Omniscient Mind alone can be correctly attributed such infinite 
forethought, and such boundless comprehensiveness of arrangement. — 
Baden Powell : The Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, 
pp. 188-9. 

Stuart (in Miscellanies, p. 42) well remarks, that the proposition, " God 
is one " means " that there is in him only one intelligent agent." 






388 THE UNITY OF GOD 

§ 3. The Unity of God revealed in the Scriptures of the 
Old and the New Testament. 

" Unto thee it was showed," ..." that thou mightest know that the 
Lord he is God : there is none else beside him," Deut. iv. 35. And, 
as the law, so the gospel teacheth us the same : " We know that an 
idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but 
one," 1 Cor. viii. 4. This unity of the Godhead will easily appear as 
necessary as the existence; so that it must be as impossible there 
should be more Gods than one, as that there should be none. . . . The 
nature of God consists in this, that he is the prime and original cause 
of all things, as an independent Being upon which all things else 
depend, and likewise the ultimate end or final cause of all : but in this 
sense two prime causes are unimaginable ; and for all things to depend 
of one, and to be more independent Beings than one, is a clear con- 
tradiction. This primity God requires to be attributed to himself: 
M Hearken unto me, O Jacob, and Israel my called ! I am he j I am 
the first, I also am the last," Isa. xlviii. 12. And from this primity 
he challengeth his unity : " Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, 
and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts, I am the first, and I am the 
last ; and beside me there is no God," Isa. xliv. 6. ... If there were 
more Gods than one, then were not all perfections in one. ..." He 
doth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the 
inhabitants of the earth " (Dan. iv. 35), said Nebuchadnezzar out of 
his experience ; and St. Paul expresseth him as " worketh all things 
after the counsel of his own will." If, then, there were more supreme 
Governors of the world than one, each of them absolute and free, they 
might have contrary determinations concerning the same thing; than 
which nothing can be more prejudicial unto government. God is a 
God of order, not confusion ; and therefore of unity, not admitting 
multiplication. If it be better that the universe should be governed 
by one than many, we may be assured that it is so ; because nothing 
must be conceived of God but what is best. . . . Now, God is not only 
one, but hath a unity peculiar to himself, by which he is the only God ; 
and that not only by way of actuality, but also of possibility. Every 
individual man is one, but so as there is a second and a third ; and 
consequently every one is part of a number, and concurring to a mul- 
titude ; . . . whereas in the divine nature there is an intrinsical and 
essential singularity, because no other being can have any existence but 
from that; and whatsoever essence hath its existence from another ifl 



REVEALED IN THE HOLT SCRIPTURES. 389 

not God. u I am the Lord," saith he, " and there is none else j there 
is no God besides me : that they may know, from the rising of the 
sin and from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, 
and there is none else," Isa. xlv. 5, 6. Deut. iv. 35, and xxxii. 39. 
Ps. xviii. 31. He who hath infinite knowledge knoweth no other God 
beside himself. " Is there a God besides me ? yea, there is no God ; I 
know not any," Isa, xlv. 18, 21, 22, and xliv. 8. And we who believe 
in him, and desire to enjoy him, need for that end to know no other 
God but him. " For this is life eternal, that they might know thee 
the only true God " (John xvii. 3), — as certainly one as God. . . . 
If we should apprehend more Gods than one, I know not what could 
determine us, in any instant, to the actual adoration of any one ; for 
where no difference doth appear (as, if there w r ere many, and all by 
nature Gods, there could be none), what inclination could we have, 
what reason could we imagine, to prefer or elect any one before the 
rest for the object of our devotions ? . . . Without this acknowledg- 
ment [of the unity of God], we cannot give unto God the things which 
are God's ; it being part of the worship and honor due unto God to 
accept of no compartner with him. When the law was given, in the 
observance whereof the religion of the Israelites consisted, the first 
precept was this prohibition, " Thou shalt have no other Gods before 
me " (Exod. xx. 3) ; and whosoever violateth this, denieth the foun- 
dation on which all the rest depend. . . This is the true reason of that 
strict precept by which all are commanded to give divine worship to 
God only: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only 
shalt thou serve," Matt. iv. 10. . . . Upon this foundation the whole 
heart of man is entirely required of him, and engaged to him : " Hear, 
Israel ! the Lord our God is one God : therefore thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy might," Deut. vi. 4, 5. ... If there were more Gods than one, our 
love must necessarily be terminated unto more than one, and conse- 
quently divided between them. — Bishop Pearson : Exposition of 
the Creed, Art. I. pp. 32-5. 

There is one God, that is, but one ; as St. Paul elsewhere expresseth 
it, " There is none other God but one," 1 Cor. viii. 4. And Moses 
lays this as the foundation of the natural law, as well as of the Jewish 
religion, " The Lord he is one God, and there is none besides him " 
(Deut. iv. 35) ; that is, besides Jehovah, whom the people of Israel did 
worship as the only true God. And this the prophet Isaiah perpetually 
declares, in opposition to the polytheism and variety of gods among 

33* 



390 THE UNITY OF GOD 

the heathen, " I am the first and I am the last ; and besides me there 
is no God," Isa. xliv. 6. And again, ver. 8, " Is there any God besides 
me ? There is no God ; I know not any : " He who hath an infinite 
knowledge, and knows all things, knows no other God. And our 
blessed Saviour makes this the fundamental article of all religion, and 
the knowledge of it necessary to every man's salvation. " This," says 
he, " is life eternal, to know thee the only true God." — ARCHBISHOP 
Tillotson : Sermon 48 ;. in Works, vol. iii. pp. 279-80. 

The unity of the Godhead is a truth not barely founded on a few 
places of Scripture that expressly assert it, but it may be deduced from 
every part thereof. — Dr. Thomas Ridgley : Body of Divinity, 
vol. i. p. 194. 

That there is one Supreme God, the Scriptures uniformly teach. . . . 
No one at all familiar with the books of the Old Testament can be 
ignorant, that Moses and the other prophets proposed it as the end of 
all their ministrations to impress indelibly upon the hearts and under- 
standings of the Jews a proper conception of the one true God, 
Jehovah ; and that the same essential truth, which lay at the founda- 
tion of the Jewish faith, was fully sanctioned and confirmed by Christ 
and his apostles, is evident as well from their acknowledging, in general 
terms, the divine legation of the ancient prophets, as from their more 
explicit declarations on this very point in various parts of the New 
Testament. — J. F. Flatt : Dissertation on the Deity of Christ ; in 
Biblical Repertory, new series, vol. i. pp. 35-6. 

The doctrine of the unity of God is taught in the most clear and 
ex*plicit manner in the Old and New Testaments. " Jehovah is God, 
Jehovah is one," i.e. one God, Dent vi. 4 j iv. 35, 39 ; xxxii. 39. " I 
am God, and there is none else," Isa. xlv. 5, 21, 22 ; Ps. lxxxvi. 10. 
The doctrine of the unity of God was at the foundation of the whole 
Mosaic religion and institute, and also of the Christian religion. " And 
this is eternal life, that they might know thee," rbv povov akrjdivbv tiebv 
[".the only true God"], John xvii. 3. 'H/tfv elg tieog 6 Tzarrjp, "We 
believe in one God," 1 Cor. viii. 4-6 ; James ii. 19, seq. — Dr. G. C. 
Knapp : Christian Theology, sect. xvi. I. 

The theology of Judaism was pure, sublime, and devotional. The 
belief of one supreme, self-existent, and all-perfect Being, the Creator 
of the heavens and the earth, was the basis of all the religious institu- 
tions of the Israelites ; the sole object of their hopes, fears, and 
worship. ... It was the avowed design of that law [the law of Moses] 
to teach the Israelites that there is only one God, and to secure them 



REVEAI<ED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 391 

from that polytheism and idolatry which prevailed among all the 

nations round about them Jesus Christ and his apostles . . . 

retain all that is excellent in the Old-Testament revelation; for Christ 
came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them, and 
to carry the scheme of religion there laid down to a still higher degree 
of excellency. — T. Hartwell Horne : Introduction to the Critical 
Study of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i. pp. 143, 149. 

If we follow the guidance of Scripture, we are to conceive of God 
as one ; one Being or existence ; one Mind, creating, directing, con- 
trolling, all things ; possessing the faculties and attributes essential to 
all mental or spiritual existence, as consciousness, understanding, will, 
affections, &c. — Joseph Haven, Jun., in New Englander for Feb. 
1850 ; vol. viii. (new series, vol. ii.) p. 17. 

In the Old Testament, God is distinctly announced as the one living 
and true God. . . . The unity of God is made especially prominent, and 
contrasted strongly and variously with the idolatrous notions prevalent 
among men. It is a pure system of Theism, allowing not the slightest 
departure from the strict idea of one God only, supreme on earth and 
ui heaven, and alone entitled to the homage and adoration of men. 
God is distinctly an individual, not an abstract power. — Dr. Seth 
Sweetser, in Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1854 j vol xi. p. 88. 



These extracts are given, not as implying that any Trinitarian profess- 
edly believes in a plurality of Gods, but as pointing out the immense weight 
of evidence in favor of the Divine Unity over that for a Trinity of persons in 
the Godhead, — evidence so strong and irresistible that scarcely any Chris- 
tian can deny the existence of only one underived, self-existent, and eternal 
Cause. It is, however, for the believer in the perfect equality of three 
divine persons seriously to consider, whether this doctrine does not infringe 
on the unity of God; and for him who advocates the derivation of the Son 
and Holy Spirit from the Father to reflect, whether this notion is not entirely 
incompatible with that of eternity and self-existence, which are acknow- 
ledged attributes of Deity. To adopt the language of Moses Stuart (in 
Biblical Repository for July, 1835, vol. vi. p. 113), we would ask, " To what 
good purpose can it be that Christians strenuously assert their belief in the 
unity of God, while they continue to make representations which, when 
strictly examined, prove to be altogether inconsistent, in a theoretical point 
of view, with numerical unity of substance and essential attributes? I am 
filled with unwelcome apprehension, whenever I perceive that a far greater 
proportion of zeal is maintained, in any metaphysical school of theology, 
for the personality than for the unity of the Godhead, — just as though 
i Hear, Israel ! Jehovah our God is one Jehovah,' were expunged from 
the Sacred Record, or put in the background ! This should not be so.'* 



892 THE UNIVERSAL FATHER 



KBCT. III. — GOD, THE FATHER, THE ONLY PERSON OR BEING WHC 
IS UNDERIVED OR SELF-EXISTENT AND SUPREME. 

How immeasurably exalted must the Father be above the Son and Spirit, if he i* 
the ground or cause of their being, the fons et principium of Godhead itself! — Mosei 
Stuart. 

By the gift of eternal generation, Christ hath received of the Father 
one and in number the self-same substance, which the Father hath of 
himself unreceived from any other. For every beginning is a Father 
unto that which cometh of it, and every offspring is a Son unto that 
out of which it groweth. Seeing, therefore, the Father alone is 
originally that Deity which Christ originally is not (for Christ is God 
by being of God, Light by issuing out of Light), it foiloweth hereupon, 
that whatsoever Christ hath common unto him with his heavenly 
Father, the same of necessity must be given him, but naturally and 
eternally given. — Richard Hooker : Ecclesiastical Polity, book v. 
chap. liv. 2 ; in Works, vol. i. pp. 395-6. 

According to the second section of the present chapter (pp. 381-91), 
nature and revelation proclaim the existence of only one God, — of only one 
Being who is self-originated, absolutely perfect, and unequalled by any other 
intelligence in heaven or on earth. Here it is admitted by Hooker, — 
though in terms and with notions which are taken from the creed of a 
metaphysical age, but which, to do justice to the main idea, may be put 
in the simpler language of the New Testament, — that that Being is the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This holy Son of God, however 
divine may have been his nature and however great his powers, is obviously 
different from and inferior to Him who is the one God, the Parent of his 
existence, and the Giver of " whatsoever Christ hath." His nature and 
his powers, not less than those of the humblest and most obscure of the 
human family, were alike derived from the Infinite Source of life and light. 

As I am assured that there is an infinite and independent Being, 
which we call a God, and that it is impossible there should be more 
infinities than one ; so I assure myself that this one God is the Father 
of all things, especially of all men and angels, so far as the mere act of 
creation may be styled generation ; that he is, farther yet, and in a 
more peculiar manner, the Father of all those whom he regenerated 
by his Spirit, whom he adopteth in his Son, as heirs and coheirs with 
him. . . . But beyond and far above all this, ... I believe him the 
Father, in a more eminent and transcendent manner, of one singular 



THE ONLY UNDERIVED AND SUPREME BEING 393 

and proper Son, his own, his beloved, his only-begotten Son ; whom 
he hath not only begotten of the blessed Virgin, by the coming of the 
Holy Ghost, and the overshadowing of his power ; not only sent with 
special authority as the King of Israel ; not only raised from the dead, 
and made heir of all things in his house ; but, antecedently to all this, 
hath begotten him by way of eternal generation in the same Divinity 
and Majesty with himself : by which paternity, co-eval to the J >eity $ 
I acknowledge him always Father, as much as always God. And, in 
this relation, I profess that eminency and priority, that as he is the 
original Cause of all things as created by him, so is he the Fountain 
of the Son begotten of him, and of the Holy Ghost proceeding from 
him. — Bishop Pearson : Exposition of the Creed, Art I. pp. 58-9. 

See another passage from this learned writer, quoted in the present 
work, p. 265. 

If the human mind is capable of entertaining the dogma, that two per- 
sons who received their essence, all that they are, and all that they have, 
from another Being that was prior to them and is pre-eminent over them, 
are either co-equal and co-eternal in power and glory with their Paternal 
Benefactor, or are one and the same Being, with the self-same conscious- 
ness, as he, — or are both equal to and identical with him, — there seems to 
be no good reason for supposing, that it may not also entertain any notion, 
however gi-oss, absurd, or contradictory, which, under the name or the plea 
of a holy mystery, may be presented for its belief. 

Not only the name and title of God, but the most incommunicable 
properties and perfections of the Deity, are in Scripture frequently 
ascribed to the Son and the Holy Ghost ; one property only excepted, 
which is peculiar to the Father, as he is the Principle and Fountain 
of the Deity, — that he is of himself, and of no other ; which is 
not, nor can be, said of the Son and Holy Ghost. — Archbishop 
Tillotson: Sermon 44; in Works, vol. hi. pp. 215-16. 

According to this excellent prelate, the Son and the Holy Ghost are 
devoid of at least one of the properties or perfections of Deity, — underived 
existence. The Father, therefore, is alone God; for he only has this perfec- 
tion ; he only is absolutely perfect. To use the words of the same writer, 
in his forty-eighth Sermon : M Absolute perfection, which we ascribe to God 
as the most essential notion which mankind hath always had concerning 
him, does necessarily suppose Unity; because this is essential to the notion 
of a Being that is absolutely perfect, that all perfection meets and is united 
in such a Being. But to imagine more Gods, and some perfections to be in 
one, and some in another, does destroy the most essential notion which men 
have of God ; namely, that he is a Being absolutely perfect, that is, as per- 
fect as possible." 



894 THE UNIVERSAL FATHER 

The Father is the first person in the following respects : 1st, In the 
order of subsistence. The hypostasis is ascribed to the Father. The 
Son is called " the express image of his person," the character of his 
hypostasis. The Father, therefore, is the archetype ; the Son, the 
resemblance : but the archetype is prior to that which is conformed to 

it. . . Whilst [however], &c 2dly, In the order of operation. 

Since the Father works by the Son, it necessarily follows, that, in 
relation to the other persons, he works originally and from himself, 
and has in himself the principle of operation, as well personally as 
essentially. — Herman Witsius : Dissertations on the apostles' 
Creed, Diss. vii. 6, 7. 

When the Son is called second to the Father, or a minister to the 
Father, this denotes the subordination of persons, inasmuch as the one 
derives his origin from the other, but does not imply any inequality of 
nature in these divine persons. The Father, as the Father, is the first 
person in the Holy Trinity; the Son, the second after the Father. 
In all divine operations, the Son is the minister of the Father, inasmuch 
as he ever operates from the Father, who is the Source and Origin 
of all his divine operations as well as of his being, and God the Father 
operates through him ; but the Father is never said to operate from 
the Son, or the Son through the Father. — Bishop Bull : Defensin 
Fidei NicenrB, sect. iv. cap. 2, § 2. 

This extract is quoted and approved by VV. D. Conybeare in his Theo- 
logical Lectures, pp. 457-8. 

Notwithstanding the learned bishop's attempt to evade the consequences 
resulting from his own sentiments, when he says that the Son's derivation 
from the Father " does not imply any inequality of nature," we have no 
hesitation in affirming that no Unitarian could frame language more plainly 
expressive of the infinite disparity and the unqualified distinction which 
exist between the Supreme Being, or universal Parent, and his best-beloved 
Son. The First of all fathers and of all intelligences, here unscripturally 
called " the first person in the Holy Trinity," is, according to Bishop Bull, 
and in perfect agreement with the declarations of the New Testament, the 
" Source and Origin of all the divine operations of the Son, as well as of his 
being." In proof of this position, we would refer to the numerous texts 
quoted in the first part of ".Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations of 
Unitarianism." 

God the Father alone is, in reference to his manner of existence, 
an absolutely perfect Being, because he alone is self-existent. He 
alone, consequently, is absolutely perfect in reference to those per- 
fections which do presuppose self-existence. Those perfections arfi 



THE ONLY UNDERIYED AND SUPREME BEING. 395 

absolute independence, and being the first Original of all other beings ; 
in which the Son and the Holy Ghost are comprehended. ... It is, 
therefore, a flat contradiction to say that the second and third persons 
are self-existent ; and therefore it is alike contradictious to affirm them 
to be beings absolutely perfect in reference to their manner of existence, 
and to say that they have the perfections of absolute independence, and 
of being the first Originals of all things. Since the Father alone is a 
Being of the most absolute perfection, he having those perfections 
which the other two persons are uncapable of having, he alone is God 
in the absolutely highest sense. — Edward Fowler, Bishop of 
Gloucester: Certain Propositions, pp. 3-5, Lond. 1719. 

These sentiments yield up, in the clearest manner, the great principle 
for which Unitarians have always contended ; but that they were not penned 
by a Unitarian is evident from the fact, that, in the same small pamphlet, 
the writer professes to oppose both Arianism and Socinianism, by asserting 
that the Son and Holy Spirit have aU the perfections of the Godhead, such 
as eternal existence and unlimited power, with the exception of those that 
must of necessity be peculiar to the Father, and u that there is an uncon- 
ceivably close and inseparable union both in will and nature between them " 
and the Father. (See pp. 7-10.) A defender of the Nicene fathers, and an 
admirer, if not a disciple, of Cud worth and Bull, he only carries out their 
principles to a more legitimate extent. 

The Father is, as it were, the top of Unity, the Head and Foun- 
tain of alL He is first in our conception of God; and therefore, 
whether we speak of the Almighty God, or the eternal God, or the 
all-knowing God (and the reason is the same for the only God, unity 
being an attribute of the Godhead, like omnipotence, eternity, &c), 
we primarily and principally mean the Father, tacitly including the 
other two persons It is very certain that the Son has his know- 
ledge, and every other perfection, from the Father, in the same sense 
as he hath also his nature or substance from the Father. — Dr: Daniel 
Waterlaxd : Eight Sermons, pp. 141, 267. 

But this writer adds, that the Son's knowledge is one and the same, \l 
extent and degree, with the Father's. 

In those verses [of the Athanasian Creed], the Father is asserted 
to be the Fountain and Origin of Divinity, and of course the Fountain 
and Origin of all divine power. The Nicene Creed, which corresponds 
"with the creed under consideration, intimates the same, when it styles 
our Lord " God of, i. e, from God, Light of Light, very God cf very 
God," And the most learned writer on this subject [Bishop Bull] 



396 THE FATHER ONLY, UNDERIVED. 

has shown that the primitive Christians before the Council of Nice, as 
well as after that council, held this doctrine. Uno ore docuerunt are 
his words, " they taught it with one voice," so unanimous were they in 
this opinion. — Bishop Huntingford: Thoughts on the Trinity; 
in Theological Works, p. 90. 

The whole doctrine of the Scriptures . . . holds forth to us an 
establishment of divine wisdom, righteousness, and goodness, for the 
recovery of lapsed mankind to holiness and happiness. In this con- 
stitution, the Almighty Father is the First Cause and the Supreme 
Object of the whole, sustaining the legislative honors of the divine 
character : and therefore he is peculiarly denominated God, " of whom 
are all things," in the creation and sustentation of the universe, and in 
the redemption and salvation of the church, " and we to him," as our 
highest end ; " the God of our Lord Jesus Christ ; " also " the one 
God," " the only God," and " the true God," in opposition to the ficti- 
tious deities of the world. On the other hand, the Son of God is the 
Mediator, Saviour, Redeemer, and Lord, in the actual execution of 
the eternal and gracious purposes, by his humiliation in assuming our 
nature, by his exaltation in that nature and in his official capacity, and 
by the works of his Holy Spirit. Thus the Father is glorified in the 
Son, the Spirit of Truth glorifies the Lord Jesus, and God is all in 
all. — Dr. J. P. Smith : Scripture Testimony, vol. ii. p. 392. 

See Limborch and Holden, as quoted in p. 266; with remarks by 
Calvin, Le Clerc, and Stuart, on this mode of explaining the Trinity in 
Unity, pp. 266-8. See also Stuart and Dr. D. W. Clark on eternal gene- 
ration and procession, pp. 274-6. 

With the exception of such Trinitarians as believe in a nominal or 
relative Trinity of persons in the Godhead, and those who deny the eternal 
generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost, — whose opi- 
nions, when definitely explained, are, as we before observed, either a kind 
of obscure Unitarianism, or an unconscious Tritheism, — perhaps a great 
majority of those who are professedly orthodox on the subject agree with 
the eminent writers from whom we have made extracts in this section. 
The sentiments here propounded, however, when separated from the anti- 
scriptural dogmas with which they are combined, are evidently nothing 
else than Unitarianism ; namely, that God the Father is the only Being who 
is self-existent or unoriginated and independent; that the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit (as signifying a person distinct from the Father), received their 
existence, their capacities, and their powers from Him who is called " the 
Fountain of Deity;" or, in other words, that Jesus Christ, and every other 
person or being in the universe, are ipfinitely subordinate or inferior to the 
cne Supreme God, the Almighty Father. 



IMPROPRIETY OF PRAYING TO A TRINITY. 397 



SECT. IV. — THE ONE SUPREME PERSON OR BEING, THE FATHER, THB 
ONLY OBJECT OF PRIMARY AND UNCEASING ADORATION. 

God! we praise thee, and confess 

That thou the only Lord 
And everlasting Father art, 

By all the earth adored. 

Bishop Patrick. 

i 1. The Worship of a Trinity Unscriptural. and Improper,— 
God to be addressed as One. 

I dislike this vulgar prayer, " Holy Trinity, one God ! have mercy 
on us," as altogether savoring of barbarism. We repudiate such 
expressions, as being not only insipid, but profane. — Abridged from 
John Calvin : Tractatus Theologici, p. 796. 

In reference to this remark, Dr. South (in Judgment of a Disinterested 
Person, p. 29) says: "As to that prayer pn the Liturgy of the Church of 
England], 4 God the Father! have mercy on us; God the Son! have 
mercy on us; God the Holy Ghost! have mercy on us/ — it hath been 
disliked by divers learned men, particularly by Mr. Calvin. But 'tis cer- 
tain, 'tis not the church's intention to own hereby three spirits, or three 
objects of worship; the object of worship being incontestably, and I think 
confessedly, but one. The church, by this form of prayer, means only to 
invocate God by the three distinctions which she owneth to be in him. . . . 
* Father,' when said of God, is original intellect; 'Son' is reflex wisdom; 
and ' Holy Spirit ' is divine love." 

We quote the whole passage, in the Litany, that the reader may compare 
it with any of the prayers recorded in the Bible as having been presented 
to God by Jesus Christ and the apostles, especially with that most simple 
and sublime of all liturgical forms, — the Lord's Prayer. " God the Fa- 
ther of heaven ! have mercy upon us miserable sinners. God the Son, 
Redeemer of the world ! have mercy upon us miserable sinners. God the 
Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son ! have mercy upon us 
miserable sinners. holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and 
one God ! have mercy upon us miserable sinners." 

Whatever may have been " the church's intention," we think it " incon- 
testable " that no terms could more clearly express belief in the existence 
of three separate objects of worship, or three Gods, than the prayer to which 
the Genevan Reformer objects. And South himself seems to have felt 
that his Sabellian " distinctions " could not be appreciated by the great 
mass of the worshippers in the English church ; for he immediately add3, 
'Notwithstanding, because of the common people, who by occasion of that 

34 






598 GOD, THE FATHER, 

form may entertain Tritheistic notions, Mr. Calvin advised well, that this 
and such like offensive forms be taken away. When I say * offensive,* I 
mean they are forms at which the ignorant may dangerously stumble, — 
may easily make shipwreck of the faith." 

We Christians are taught by the Christian religion to acknowledge 
and worship the only true God : " and we are in Him that is true, in 
or by his Son Jesus Christ ;" that is, we worship the only true God, 

by his Son Jesus Christ The religion of the apostles and 

primitive Christians . . . expressly teacheth us, that there is but one 
object of our prayers, and one Mediator by whom we are to make 
our addresses to God. " There is one God ; and one Mediator between 
God and men, the man Christ Jesus," says St. Paul, when he gives a 
standing rule concerning prayer in the Christian church. — Arch- 
bishop Tillotson: Sermons 71, 191; in Works, vol. v. p. 189, and 
vol. x. p. 144. 

Whatever distinction we are taught to make of the persons of the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we are most carefully warned 
[by the compilers of our Liturgy] against the division of the Godhead ; 
and ail our devotions are addressed to one and the same God, through 
the mediation of Christ Jesus, agreeably to the whole tenor of Scrl J 
ture, and particularly to the doctrine laid down in the plainest terms 
in my text [1 Tim. ii. 5], that " there is but one God, and one Media- 
tor between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." — Dr. Benjamin 
Dawson : Illustration of Texts of Scripture, pp. 206-7. 

No one will assert that God is ever directly addressed in the Bible as a 
Trinity of co-eternal or self-existent hypostases, or even of unequal but 
essentially divine agents; but rather invariably as one single Person or 
Being, the Creator of heaven and earth, the God of the Jews, the Father 
of Jesus Christ, the Parent of all intelligent beings. Yet, unhappily, the 
practice of Christian churches has, in general, differed from that of prophets 
and apostles; and Dr. Dawson's statement would have been nearer the 
truth of the case, had he said that all the devotions of the English church 
should, u agreeably to the whole tenor of Scripture," be addressed to one 
and the same God. 

The general practice of Scripture seems to indicate, that, in ordinary 
worship, we should address the Deity in his unity, manifested to us as, 
in Christ Jesus, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to men 
their trespasses. I confess that I have ever disliked the use of the 
word " Trinity " in prayer to God, as not being a name whereby God 
reveals himself to us, and as savoring of scholastic theology. — James 
Carlile: J$us Christ the Great God our Saviour, p. 232. 



THE GREAT OBJECT OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. 399 

§ 2. The Father entitled to Supreme Worship. 

Then do we honor the Trinity in Unity, not when we conceive of 
the mystery, but when we make a religious use of this high advantage 
to come to God in the name of Christ by the Sjjirit, and look for all 
from God in Christ through the Holy Ghost. Direct your prayers to 
God the Father. Christ prayed to the Father: "I thank thee, O 
Father ! Lord of heaven and earth." So the saints in their addresses : 
u For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." Pray in the name of Christ : " Whatsoever ye shall ask in 
my name, that will I do." Pray by the Spirit : " Praying in the 
Holy Ghost ; " " Likewise the Spirit itself also helpeth our infirmities, 
because he maketh intercession for the saints, according to the will 
of God." Christians need not puzzle themselves about conceiving of 
Three in One, and One in Three : let them in this manner come to 
God, and it sufficeth; make God the object, and Christ the means 
of access, and look for help from the Spirit. — Dr. Thomas Manton j 
apud Christian Reformer for June, 1839. 

When we speak of or contemplate the divine nature absolutely, 
and without reference to particular dispensations, God the Father is 
generally the first in our conceptions, as far as he can be the object of 
conception, but not to the exclusion of the divine nature either of the 
Son or Holy Ghost. In these dispensations, in the heavenly economy, 
we have a manifest and obvious reason for addressing our prayers and 
petitions, public and private, for the most part, to the first person of 
the Holy Trinity. — William Hawkins : Discourses on Scripture 
Mysteries, pp. 29, 30. 

It appears from what has been said, that we ought to regard and 
acknowledge the Father as the Head of the Sacred Trinity, and the 
primary object of religious homage. . . . We often read of Christ's 
praying unto the Father, but never read of the Father's praying unto 
Christ. He taught his disciples to pray in the same form in which 
he prayed, and to say, " Our Father which art in heaven ; " and to 
ask the Father, in his name, for every thing they wanted. And how 
often did the apostles offer up their devout and fervent prayers for 
others to " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " ! This 
common mode of expression, in their addresses to the throne of grace, 
plainly implies that they meant to acknowledge the Father as the 
primary or supreme object of adoration. Though the heavenly hosts 
pay divine homage to the Son of God, yet they more immediately and 



400 GOD, THE FATHER, 

directly address the Father in their most solemn and grateful devo- 
tions. They say, " Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto 
Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever." 
These examples of Christ, of the apostles, and of the heavenly hosts, 
not only warrant but require Christians to address their prayers and 
praises to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the primary 
object of divine homage and adoration. — Dr. Nathanael Emmons : 
Works, vol. iv. pp. 137-8. 

In the same pages from which this extract is taken, Dr. Emmons incon- 
sistently speaks of " all the three persons in the Godhead " as " equal in 
every divine perfection;" and approves the conduct of "the great body of 
the most pure and pious Christians'* who have "denied Christian commu 
nion and fellowship to those who have openly embraced the Unitarian 
error;" that is, as we understand it, to those who, like himself, regard the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as u the primary or supreme 
object of adoration." 

The revealed order in the economy of redemption and grace, and 
the authority of Scripture, lead to the persuasion, that the most usual 
mode of our devotional addresses should be to the Father, with expli- 
cit reference to the mediation of the Son and the influence of the Holy 
Spirit. — Dr. «T. Pye Smith : Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, 
vol. ii. p. 455. 

In the Scriptures ... we are directed and encouraged to address 
ourselves to him [God] as our heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, 
the Son of his love ; and in his name to offer up our prayers and 
praises, our confessions and thanksgivings, with the profoundest humi- 
lity, becoming creatures deeply sensible of their own un worthiness. — 
Thomas Hartwell Horne : Introduction to the Critical Study and 
Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i. p. 149. 

§ 3. The Son rarely, the Holy Ghost (as a Person different from 
the Father) never, in the Bible, addressed in Prayer. 

All prayer is regularly directed to the Father, and concluded m the 
name of the Son. . . . But all prayer is addressed to the Father or to 
the Son, and never to the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is a 
gift ; and a gift is not to be asked from the gift, but rather bestowed 
by the liberal giver. — William Durand; apud Sandium, p. 213. 

Nearly in the same words, Hugh de St. Cher, who says that " prayer 
should be offered up rarely to the Son." 



THE GREAT OBJECT OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. 401 

That the Holy Ghost is God is nowhere said in Scripture ; that the 
Holy Ghost is to be invocated is nowhere commanded, nor any exam- 
ple of its being done recorded. — Jeremy Taylor : Works, vol. xiii 
pp. 143-4. 

When you make your prayers, you use to pray to the Father, and 
likewise in the name of Christ ; but you do not at all or seldom read, 
in all the Scriptures, of prayers made to the Holy Ghost ? And why ? 
Because it is his office to make the prayers themselves, which you 
thus put up to the other two persons ; and therein lieth his honor. — 
Dr. Thomas Goodwin : Exposition of the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
part i. p. 16. 

It is true we have no precept or example for paying distinct and 
direct homage to the Holy Ghost ; but, &c. — Dr. Nathanael 
Emmons : Works, vol. iv. p. 138. 

The words [in 1 Thess. iii. 11] are certainly decisive for the opi- 
nion, that prayers to the Son are not inadmissible, even if they refer 
to external relations ; but the very circumstance that such occur no 
more in the New Testament, and then the whole analogy of faith, are, 
surely, decidedly opposed to making prayers to the Saviour frequently, 
much more predominantly and almost exclusively, in all external 
circumstances, as is done in the community of Moravian brothers. 
The entire ancient church knows of no prayers to Christ which have 
reference to externals. If, therefore, beginners in the life of faith often 
confess themselves to be uncertain whether they shall address their 
prayers to the Father or to the Son, or even to the Holy Ghost per- 
haps, it is to be assumed as a general rule, according to the rightly 
understood relation of the Trinity, that external relations must be 
brought before the Father in prayer, but the religious moral relations 
before the Son and the Holy Ghost, or, in fine, that one should pray for 
every thing of the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost. — 
Hermann Olshausen on 1 Thess. iii. 11. 

The distinction, here spoken of, between relations which are external 
and those of a religious and moral kind, as a ground for addressing different 
persons in the Godhead, was entirely unknown to Jesus Christ and the 
apostles. The great Master taught his disciples, in all that related to 
prayer, or divine worship, to address no other person or being than Him 
who was the sole object of his own praises and petitions ; and, except in 
a few casss of a peculiar character, the apostles faithfully obeyed his « f rict 
and unqualified behest. 

A list of the texts showing the propriety of our restricting supreme ado- 
ration to the greatest of all beings, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 

34* 



402 GOD, THE FATHER, 

Christ, will be found in " Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations ol 
Unitarianism," part i. chap. 1, sect. 11. The few passages which seem to 
favor occasional prayers to our Lord will be noticed in future volumes of the 
present work. 

Olshausen's concluding recommendation, that " one should pray for 
every thing of the Father," &c, accords with the following verse in an 
ancient hymn, — 

" To thee, great God, we bend the knee, 
And in the Holy Ghost, 
Through Christ, all glory give to thee, 
With all the heavenly host ; '•' — 

and, if its simple grandeur be not alloyed by the introduction of mouern 
elements of thought, is more scriptural than the generality of the doxologies 
pronounced and sung in Trinitarian churches. Compare Dr. Manton's 
remarks, quoted in p. 399. 



$ 4. The Father, almost to the entire Exclusion of the Son and 
Holy Ghost, worshipped by the Trinitarian Congregational- 
ists, or Independents, of England. 

Does the direct worship of the Lord Christ occupy so prominent a 
place in our prayers, public and private, as, considering the character 
of the dispensation, and Scripture warrant, it ought and might ? and, 
if not, does not this subtract an element of holy inspiration from 
our social services, which might go to inform, animate, and warm our 
fellow-worshippers and ourselves ? ... It is feared that such a charge 
[namely, of seeming to war against the glory of the Mediator] derives 
countenance from the almost universal practice of addressing the 
Father alone in prayer, although nothing could be further from the 
writer's thoughts than to insinuate that this springs in any measure 
from want of devotion to the Son. . . . Has any mischief ensued from 
the practice of exclusively, or almost exclusively, addressing the Father 
in prayer ? Decidedly, in the writer's opinion, would be the reply. I 
cannot but conceive this a cause (remote or proximate) of that almost 
universal lapse into Arianism or Unitarianism of the old Presbyterian 
congregations in this country, which were in doctrine identical, and 
in discipline and order of worship all but identical, with the Inde- 
pendents. I venture to affirm this could not have happened, had the 
practice generally prevailed, to which attention is now solicited. — A 
Presbyter; in the Congregational Magazine for February, 184L, 
pp. 84-5 



THE GREAT OBJECT OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. 403 

The remarks of " A Presbyter " in your valuable periodical, " On 
the duty of directing worship to Christ," reminded me of a passage 
in the " Diary " of an eminently holy man, whose spirit has long since 
been estranged from the imperfections which attach to our most per- 
fect acts of homage on earth, and prostrated itself, in blissful adoration, 
at the feet of the glorified Redeemer in heaven, — I mean the late 
Mr. Joseph Williams, of Kidderminster. " I have been frequently 
in doubt, of late," writes this sainted individual, " whether I should 
pray to the Lord Jesus Christy or not. It has been my prevailing 
opinion that I should ; and accordingly I have done it frequently, for 
many months, in my secret retirements, with lively emotions of soul ; 
and I think I should do it more in family prayer, and more in public ; 
but it is with some difficulty I bring myself to it, and I still find in 
myself a shyness of doing it." Amongst the causes which operated 
to impose a restraint upon this specific kind of devotional exercise, he 
refers to the fact that no ministers, in the circle of his acquaintance, 
were accustomed to pray expressly to the Lord Jesus, with the excep- 
tion of the late Mr. Bradshaw, who, on one occasion, in discoursing 
of the manner of transacting a covenant with each of the persons in 
the Sacred Trinity, urged the following formula : " Blessed Jesus ! 
assert thy right, erect thy throne in my soul, and bring every power 
thereof, and every member of my body, into subjection to thy law." 
Besides this, he could not call to mind a single instance of direct 
address to him in prayer. Now it is extremely probable, sir, — 
indeed, the writer's past consciousness and observation attest the fact, 
— that others have entertained a similar doubt respecting the propriety 

of such direct appeal Were it not for fear of trespassing too 

much on your pages, and of incurring the charge of presumption 
(which, perhaps, I have already done) in assuming the character of a 
teacher of my brethren and fathers in the ministry, there is a kindred 
theme, to which I would venture to call the attention of your readers : 
[ mean the claims to divine worship of the blessed Spirit, the regenera- 
tor and sanctifier of the human soul. I am aware that this, as well as 
that under consideration, are clearly recognized in some of the sweetest 
strains of the Congregational Psalmody at present in use among us ; . . 
but there is reason to believe, that the special mode of supplication, 
embodied in these devotional hymns, does not obtain, either in the pul- 
pit, at the family altar, or in the closet, to the extent which it ought on 
the supposition of its being a scriptural formula. — A. E. P. of Lozells, 
Birham j in the Cong. Magazine for April, 1841, pp. 247-50, 



404 GOD, THE FATHER. 

I am perfectly agreed with your correspondent on the propriety and 
duty of addressing religious worship to Jesus Christ. . . . But, while 
this is my firm conviction, I also think with a distinguished advocate 
of the Divinity of our Lord [Dr. J. P. Smith], and with, I presume, 
the generality of Christians, that " the revealed order in the economy 
of redemption and grace, and the authority of Scripture, lead to the 
persuasion, that the most usual mode of our devotional addresses 
should be to the Father, with explicit reference to the mediation of 
the Son and the influence of the Holy Spirit." The language of the 
New Testament, and the entire structure of the Christian system, so 
completely harmonize with this position, that the difficulty is rather to 
select than to find proofs of its correctness. " But the hour cometh," 
said our Lord, when referring to the dispensation he was about to 
introduce, " and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the 
Father in spirit and in truth." When he had nearly completed its 
introduction, when he had nearly opened the new and living way, to 
God, he said, " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he 
will give it you ; " " At that day ye shall ask in my name." It is also 
quite evident, that the apostles understood our Lord as directing them 
to pray to the Father. Whatever occasional religious homage they 
paid to Jesus Christ, (and who that views himself as redeemed by his 
blood can fail to pay religious homage to him ?) their usual worship 
was addressed to the Father. For the Ephesian Christians the apostle 
prayed, " That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
may give unto them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the know- 
ledge of him." He says, " For this cause I bow my knees unto the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." The apostles doubtless addressed 
thanksgiving to the Redeemer ; but their more frequent thanksgivings 
seem to have been addressed to the Father. " Blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all 
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ j " " Giving thanks unto 
the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance 
of the saints in light ; " " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten 
us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead." The religion of the New Testament does not terminate 
in Jesus Christ. It is a great and glorious scheme to lead us through 
Jesus Christ to the Father. " Through him we have an access by one 
Spirit unto the Father." We may hence conclude, that although 
the worship of Jesus Christ is both the duty and the happiness of the 



THE GREAT OBJECT OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. 405 

Christian, that his usual worship should be addressed to the Father ; 
and that the worship of the Father, through the mediation of the 
Son, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit, is the grand, distinguishing 
character of Christian worship. If "the most usual mode of our 
devotional addresses should be to the Father," there may seem to be 
a difficulty in ascertaining the proportion which the worship of Jesus 
Christ should bear to that of the Father. This seeming difficulty will, 
however, vanish in Christian practice. . . . The worship of our blessed 
Redeemer, except in the form of singing his praise, is perhaps more 
adapted to personal than social, to private than public, worship. If, 
however, his worship be introduced into our public assemblies, and in 
the manner of the Te Deum associated with praises or with prayers 
to the Father, there will be required no small skill in the use of lan- 
guage to mark the transition from the worship of the Father to that of 
Jesus Christ, or from the worship of Jesus Christ to that of the Father; 
and to prevent the confusion which such a transition would otherwise 
occasion. — Another Presbyter ; in Congregational Magazine for 
April, 1841, pp. 250-1. 



Verily, the dogma of a Triune God leads to endless doubts and per 
plexities, some of its theories implying the recognition of a truth which is 
diametrically opposed to Trinitarianism itself; namely, that of the unrivalled 
Supremacy of one divine person or being, the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Unnumbered times has it been declared, and in every possible 
variety of phrase, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are each 
God, the same in substance, and equal in power and glory, though they 
constitute in all but one God; and yet, as we learn from the quotations just 
made, a most respectable body of Christians — the English Independents or 
Congregationalists, who are professedly hostile to Unitarianism — are accus- 
tomed, not to address this Triune God, or to pray to the Son or the Holy 
Ghost, but to put up their supplications and thanksgivings to the Father 
alone, through the mediation of the Son. So strong, indeed, is the feeling of 
hesitation, in the minds of many Christians, as to the propriety of addressing 
their Master in prayer, that it appears the good Mr. Joseph Williams, of 
Kidderminster, frequently doubted whether he should pray to him or not; 
and, though it was his prevailing opinion that he should, confessed that he 
still felt in himself a shyness of doing it; referring to the fact, as one of the 
causes of the restraint imposed on him, that no ministers, in the circle of 
his acquaintance, were accustomed to pray expressly to the .Lord Jesus 
Christ, with the exception of Mr. Bradshaw, who, in a discourse on one 
particular occasion, directly addressed him. This disuse of Trinitarian 
worship — this practice of addressing the Almighty Father, almost, if not 
altogether, to the exclusion of any other person or being — is, we conceive, 



406 THE FATHER THE GREAT OBJECT OF WORSHIP. 

an unconscious but a distinct acknowledgment of the truth of Unitarianism, 
and the best and most scriptural of all homage to the Anointed of God, who 
expressly commanded his disciples to pray to the Father, and who never 
once enjoined the worship of " the Trinity," or of " God the Son " and 
" God the Holy Ghost." 

It is worthy of notice, that one of the writers, " A Presbyter," con- 
ceives that the cause of the almost universal lapse of the old Presbyterian 
congregations into Unitarianism has arisen from the practice of addressing 
the Father alone in prayer. We doubt not the correctness of the remark. 
Abolish dogmatism from the pulpit, particularly in addresses to the Deity; 
let the humble petitioner, casting aside the phraseology of councils and of 
schools, use that simplicity of language which characterizes the Bible, — 
and the truth of the Unitarian doctrine cannot be otherwise than eventually 
felt and recognized. Unscriptural hymns and liturgies, associated as these 
are with human creeds and confessions of faith, continually present to the 
mind of the worshipper the idea of a Trinity, of a suffering God-man, and 
of another agent called the Holy Ghost, with personal attributes and opera- 
tions differing from those of the one only Paternal Spirit before whom the 
Christ bowed in all his acts of obedience, submission, prayer, and praise. 
But for these means of sustaining it, the popular theology would, we think, 
more speedily become purified, and more closely approximate, in its form 
and sentiment, to the simple, rational, and elevated religion of the New 
Testament, — all denominations of Christians, however they may differ in 
other respects, agreeing in no distant future to unite their voices and their 
hearts in ascriptions of praise to u the Lamb that was slain ; " but reserving 
their profounder homage, their supreme adorations, for " Him who sits upon 
the throne," — the ono Lord God Almighty, the single Cause of all exist- 
ence, the unequalled and absolute Father of angels and of men. 



407 



CHAPTER VIIL 

JESUS CHRIST INFERIOR TO GOD, THE FATHER. 



SECT. I. — IN fflS NATURE AND HIS ATTRIBUTES, CHRIST INFERIOK 

TO GOD. 

Whatsoever essence hath its existence from another is not God. 

Bishop Pearson. 

In Chapters V. and VI. a great amount of proof, yielded by the liberality, 
the learning, the unconsciousness, or the inconsistencies of Trinitarians, 
was adduced to show that the doctrine of a Triune God is either altogether 
unintelligible or absurd, and that it is not plainly and expressly declared in 
any one passage within the compass of the Bible ; if indeed, without the 
aid of tradition and the church, it can at all be established. But many of 
these writers, particularly such as belong to Protestant ranks, while acknow- 
ledging the fact that there is no clear, explicit mention of a Trinity in Unity 
in the Scriptures, and that the dogma itself is far beyond the reach of human 
discovery, or even of human comprehension, contend that, by a certain pro- 
cess of reasoning, it may be deduced by the collecting and comparing of 
various passages relating to Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost; that divine 
titles, attributes, and works are ascribed in the Sacred Books both to the 
Son and the Spirit, equally as to the Father; and that, as nature and reve- 
lation alike declare the unity of the Divine Being, these three intelligences 
cannot be three separate and infinite Gods, but only three persons in one 
God. We have, however, already shown, by the aid of our Trinitarian 
brethren, that the notion of three essentially divine persons or agents must, 
from the very conceptions that we are obliged to form, imply the idea of 
three Gods, equal or unequal; and, with all reverence, we may venture to 
say, that, if the inferential mode of proving the Trinitarian dogma were 
legitimate, it would not establish its truth, but the obvious contradictions 
of the Volume in which it is contained. But Unitarians are not reduced 
to the necessity of believing that Holy Scripture teaches any doctrine so 
irrational. They find the clearest and most marked distinctions made by 
the sacred writers between God and Jesus Christ; between the universal 
Father and his best-beloved Son; between the Anointer and the Anointed; 
between the Sender ai»d the Sent; between the primary Source of human 



408 AS A DIVINE BEING, 

salvation, and the faithful Bearer, the meek and humble but perfect Per 
former, of his holy will, — distinctions all of such a character as necessarily 
to imply, not two divine persons, in any metaphysical or incomprehensible 
sense of the term, but two distinct beings, one of whom is Supreme, and 
tne other subordinate or inferior. 

So full and so resplendent is this evidence, that, though lacking clear 
and explicit proofs for the doctrine of a Triune God, and though naturally 
desirous of inferring a plurality of persons in the Deity from texts which 
seem to imply an infinite nature in Christ, Trinitarians have been com- 
pelled, by the force of truth, to acknowledge that in all the circumstances 
in which he was placed, and in all the offices and characters which he is 
represented in the Christian Scriptures as sustaining, — in the discipline by 
which he was prepared to act as the Messiah, in the instructions he deli- 
vered, in the miracles he wrought, in the goodness he exhibited, in the 
blessings and the warnings he pronounced, as well as in the trials he en- 
countered, the sufferings he bore, the prayers he uttered, and the unbounded 
submission he manifested to the will of Heaven; and not only in all his 
condition and functions on earth, but also in that state of glory in which he 
is supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe, or to which, 
according to the divine decree, he was actually raised as the Lord and Ruler 
of the church which he had founded, — he was dependent on, and inferior 
to, the great Being who had sent him into the world to become its Saviour; 
and that the honor to which he is entitled from all his followers, if not from 
the hosts of heaven, should not rest on him as the object of supreme venera- 
tion, but ascend through him to the original Author of the gospel, — to 
the Spring whence flowed the existence, the goodness, the wisdom, and the 
power of the best and mightiest of divine Messengers ; in other words, that 
" every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of 
God, the Father." 

The quotations that follow in this chapter will, we conceive, be found to 
bear out the remarks just made. * 



§ 1. As a Divine Being, Christ inferior to the Father. 

" I can of mine own self do nothing," saith our Saviour, because he 
is not of himself ; and whosoever receives his being must receive his 
power from another, especially where the essence and the power are 
undeniably the same, as in God they are. " The Son," then, " can do 
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do," because he hath 

no power of himself but what the Father gave The divine 

essence which Christ had as the Word, before he was conceived by the 
Virgin Mary, he had not of himself, but by communication from God 
the Father. For this is not to be denied, that there can be but one 
essence properly divine, and so but one God of infinite wisdom, power ; 



CHRIST INFERIOR TO THE FATHER. 409 

and majesty ; that there can be but one person originally of himself 
subsisting in that infinite Being, because a plurality of more persons 
so subsisting would necessarily infer a multiplicity of Gods ; that the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is originally God, as not receiving his 
eternal being from any other. Wherefore it necessarily followeth, 
that Jesus Christ, who is certainly not the Father, cannot be a person 
subsisting in the divine nature originally of himself; and consequently, 
being . . . truly and properly the eternal God, he must be understood 
to have the Godhead communicated to him by the Father, who is not 
only eternally, but originally, God. — Bishop Pearson : Exposition 
of the Creed, Art. I. p. 48; Art. II. pp. 190-1. 

In that state of his existence before the creation of the world, our 
blessed Saviour was partaker of the divine glory and happiness. He 
was not God the Father, who is the Principle and Fountain of the 
Deity ; [but] he was- God by participation of the divine nature and 
happiness together with the Father, and by way of derivation from 
him, as the light is from the sun. — Abridged from Archbishop 
Tillotson : Sermon 43 ; in Works, vol. iii. pp. 185-6. 

What it [the eternal generation of the Son] signifies we know not 
any further than this, that it is the eternal communication of the nature 
and image of the Father to him, as an earthly parent communicates 

his own nature and likeness to his son As for this expression, 

" the one true God," it is never attributed to Son or Holy Ghost, that 
I know of, either in Scripture or any catholic writer, though it is to 
the Father, whom our Saviour himself calls " the only true God ; " for 
all three divine persons, as in conjunction with each other, being the 
one only true God, this title cannot so properly be attributed to any 
one person, but only the Father, who is the Fountain of the Deity. — 
Dr. William Sherlock : Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, 
pp. 16, 89. 

Referring to the latter of these passages, Dr. South (in his "Animadver- 
sions," p. 135) says: " Whence I infer that then neither can the expression 
of ' God,' or * the true God,' be properly attributed to the Son or to the Holy 
Ghost; forasmuch as the terms 'one God' and 'one true God,' or 'one only 
true God,' are equivalent; the term ' one God' including in it every whit as 
•nuch as the term ' one true God ' or ' one only true God,' and the term ' one 
tru,> God,' or ' one only true God,' including in it no more than the term 
1 one God.' " — This witty and sarcastic divine is much displeased with Dr. 
Sheri ock for making an admission from which the inference may be 
drawn that Christ can in no proper sense be called God, and says that 
Sherlock u seldom turns his pen but he gives some scurvy stroke at it." 

35 



410 AS A DIVINE BEING, 

All power and all knowledge are expressly ascribed to the Son of 
God in several plain passages. . . . The terms " Father " and " Son " 
convey to us no meaning, if they do not imply that the one derived 
his being from the other ; and this is confirmed, when we read that 
the Son's power and glory and dominion were all given him by the 
Father. — Dr. W. S. Powell : Charge III. ; in Discourses, p. 215. 

I know that I have you [the grave Unitarian of the older school] 
on my side, because you are the principal evidence for what I have 
been maintaining. You never have made up your mind to abandon 
the name " Son of God." You find it in the Gospels. Your desire 
to assert the letter of them, against what you suppose our figurative 
and mystical interpretations, forces you to admit the phrase. You 
not only do so, but you make the most of it. You quote all the 
passages in which Christ declares that the Son can do nothing of 
himself, that the Father is greater than he, as decisive against the 
doctrine of our creeds. You do a vast service by insisting upon them, 
by compelling us to take notice of them. They are not merely chance 
sentences, carelessly thrown out, inconsistent with others which occur 
m the same books. You are right in affirming that they contain the 
key to the life of Christ on earth. You have suggested the thought 
to us, — you could not, consistently with your scheme, bring it for- 
ward, but it was latent in jour argument, — that what he was on 
earth must be the explanation of what he is. Never can I thank you 
enough for these hints, for the help they have been to me in appre- 
nending the sense and connection of those words which you cast aside. 
If the idea of subordination in the Son to the Father, which you so 
strongly urge, is once lost sight of, or considered an idle and unimpor- 
tant school-tenet, the morality of the gospel and its divinity disappear 
together. You have helped to keep alive in our minds the distinction 
of the persons ; and that, I believe, is absolutely necessary, that we 
may confess the unity of substance. — F. D. Maurice : Theological 
Essays, No. V. pp. 70-1. 

Wo have quoted more than is essential to our purpose, to avoid any 
appearance of injustice to our author. But the small side-thrusts at the 
"grave Unitarian" will scarcely ruffle his skin; and the position, that, 
because Christ is inferior to and distinct from the Father, he must possess a 
unity of substance with him, tends certainly to give no finishing blow to the 
lite of Unitarianism. But this is to our purpose: Mr. Mauhice, emphati- 
cally agreeing with Antitrinitarians on this point, confesses the doctrine of 
the gospel to be, that Christ, the Son of God, is subordinate to the Father. 
If this language has any meaning, it will follow, as a truism, that the Son 



CHRIST INFERIOR TO THE FATHER. 411 

of God is a different being from God, and cannot be put on a perfect equa- 
lity with Him who is his Superior. 

In his next paragraph, Mr. Maurice takes in good part the " very strong 
and earnest protest " of the Unitarian " against idolatry ; " and, if we mis- 
take not, he implies that, without that protest, Trinitarians would have been 
liable to worship three Gods, instead of three distinct persons, the first of 
whom properly ranks, in his conception, as Supreme; but he quietly and 
good-naturedly turns round, and tells the Unitarian that he, too, needs to be 
on his guard, lest, from the sincerity and fervency of his admiration, he sets 
the man Jesus Christ " above God." To every friendly suggestion, let us 
all, whether Trinitarian or Unitarian, give heed ! 

When our Lord adds, oMelg ayadbg, el faj elg 6 #edc [" There is none 
good but one, that is, God "], we are to understand, with Bishops 
Pearson and Bull, the sense to be, that there is no being originally, 
essentially, and independently good, but God. Thus the Father, being 
the Fountain of the whole Deity, must, in some sense, be the Foun- 
tain of the goodness of the Son. Accordingly, the Antenicene fathers 
were generally agreed that ayadbg ["good"] essentially and strictly 
applied only to God the Father ; and to Christ only by reason of the 
goodness derived to him as being " very God of very God." — Dr. 
S. T. Bloomfield, in his Greek Testament ; note on Matt. xix. 17. 

Similarly, Makesius, quoted with approbation by Dr. Whitby, and 
followed by William Trollope. 

" My Father is greater than I." He who imparts omnipotence 
from himself must stand thus, in internal relation, to him who receives 
that omnipotence, without derogating from the equality of the power 
imparted ; as, even in the capacity of human paternity, there is an 
essential relation to sonship, which can only be expressed by " greater." 
The Father is still the " God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," 
whether in time or in eternity ; whether in our Lord's assumed human 
nature, or in the mystery of his eternally generated divine nature. 
Though " the Father has put all things under the feet of the bon, yet 
it is manifest," as St. Paul reasons, " that He is excepted who did put 
all things under him." These, therefore, are " the great God, and our 
Saviour," described in Tit. ii. 13. — Granville Pexn on John xiv. 28 ; 
in Suppl. Annotations to the Book of the New Covenant, p. 66. 

A volume of extracts of a similar character might easily be made; but 
the above, with those previously given in pp. 392-6, will suffice to show, 
that, even granting the antiscriptural doctrine of Christ's possessing a truly 
divine nature and most of the divine attributes, we must, on the showing of 
many learned Trinitarians, regard hira as inferior to the universal Father. 



412 AS A PRE-EXISTENT BEING, 

§2. As a Pre-kxis test Being, or even as the Creator of the 
World, Christ not necessarily God. 

The most of his [Dr. Bushnell's] proofs [of the Divinity of 
Christ] do not reach the point at all. They merely prove that oul 
Saviour was superhuman, perhaps superangelic, but not that he was 
properly divine. For example, he first argues the Divinity of Christ 
from his pre-existence. But this obviously does not prove it. An 
Arian would say that our Saviour was pre-existent. If he had been no 
more than an incarnate aeon or angel, he must have existed previous 
to his incarnation. — Dr. Enoch Pond : Review of Dr. Bushnell's 
" God in Christ," p. 15. 

The remark of this writer, that pre-existence does not prove Divinity, 
is evidently and undeniably correct. But, if so acute and liberal a reasoner 
as Dr. Bushnell loses sight of this simple truth, we may expect that others 
of stronger prejudices and less judgment will regard all texts which seem 
to imply Christ's existence before his appearance on earth as equivalent to 
proofs of his divine nature. 

It appears to me upon all occasions most unbecoming and pre- 
sumptuous for us to say what God can do, and what he cannot do ; 
and I shall never think that the truth or the importance of a conclu- 
sion warrants any degree of irreverence in the method of attaining 
it. The power exerted in making the most insignificant object out 
of nothing by a word is manifestly so unlike the greatest human 
exertions, that we have no hesitation in pronouncing that it could 
not proceed from the strength of man ; and when we take into view 
the immense extent and magnificence and beauty of the things thus 
created, the different orders of spirits, as well as the frame of the 
material world, our conceptions of the power exerted in creation are 
infinitely exalted. But we have no means of judging whether this 
power must be exerted immediately by God, or whether it may be 
delegated by him to a creature. It is certain that God has no need 
of any minister to fulfil his pleasure. He may do by himself every 
thing that is done throughout the universe. Yet we see that in the 
ordinary course of providence he withdraws himself, and employs the 
ministry of other beings ; and we believe, that, at the first appearance 
of the gospel, men were enabled, by the divine power residing in them, 
to perform miracles, i.e. such works as man cannot do, — to cure the 
most irveterate diseases by a word, without any application of human 
art 5 and to raise the dead. Although none of these acts imply a 



CHRIST NOT NECESSARILY GOD. 413 

power equal to creation, yet, as all of them imply a power more than 
human, they destroy the general principle of that argument upon 
which creation is made an unequivocal proof of Deity in him who 
creates ; and it becomes a very uncertain conjecture, whether reasons 
perfectly unknown to us might not induce the Almighty to exert, by 
the ministry of a creature, powers exceeding in any given degree 
those by which the apostles of Jesus raised the dead. — Dr. George 
Hill : Lectures in Divinity, pp. 333-4. 

We perfectly coincide in these sentimants, but, with the writer, think 
u there is a strong probability," as will be shown in a future volume, " that 
the work of creation was not accomplished by any creature." If, however, 
it be necessary to understand the Introduction to John's Gospel, and other 
passages, to refer personally to Jesus Christ as the Creator of the material 
universe, we are led to think, from the general acceptation of the Greek 
preposition dia, " through," in the New Testament, and from numberless 
places which represent our Lord as the agent or instrument of the Almighty, 
that he must have acted in this work as indeed a being extraordinary in 
power, but still infinitely subordinate to his God and Father, whom he uni- 
formly exhibited in the character of a Superior, and of whom he was the 
Servant and the Messenger. See " Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustra- 
tions of Unitarianism," part i. chap. 2, sect. 1 (8), and sect. 2 (10-13). 

I think I have a right to demand, that, unless you can show cause 
to the contrary, you should adopt the translation of 6td as the instru- 
mental cause in John i. 3, Heb. i. 2, and Col. i. 16 ; and, if so, confess 
that Christ was instrumental in the creation of the world, and therefore 
that he pre-existed at least — Bishop Longley : The Brothers 9 
Controversy, p. 49. 

This passage [Col. i. 16, 17] is somewhat stronger than the others 
[1 Cor. viii. 6, and Heb. i. 3], Yet not any of them seem decisive as 
to the question whether full and supreme Divinity, like that of the 
Father, belongs to the Son ; for it is certainly not impossible to con- 
ceive of the power to create and to govern being conferred, and 
exercised instrunientally ; an idea which the form of expression did 
[" through"] seems to indicate. — Joseph Hayex, Jun., in New 
Englander for February, 1850, vol. viii. (new series, vol. ii.) p. 9. 



The passages of Scripture referred to above, and others supposed to 
teach or to imply the agency of Christ as the Creator of the universe, or as 
* pre-existent being, will be afterwards treated of in the order in which 
they occur in the Bible. 

35* 



414 CHRIST NOT THE LORD GOD 



BECT. II. — DEFICIENCY OF PROOF FOR CHRIST'S EXISTENCE BEFORE 
HIS APPEARANCE ON EARTH. 

God, who in various methods told 
His mind and will to those of old, 
Hath sent his Son, with truth and grace, 
To teach us in these latter days. 

Isaac Watts. 

$ 1. Christ not the Lord God, or the Angel of Jehovah, who 
appeared to the patriarchs and the prophets. 

The question as to the pre-existence of our Lord has but little bearing 
on the inquiry, whether he be an infinite being, and one of the persons in 
tue Godhead; for, however high in rank, nature, or qualifications, no one 
could be underived, or be absolute in his perfections, unless he had been 
prior to all creation, or to production of any kind. But, when texts of 
Scripture that are thought to imply the existence of Christ prior to his birth 
are read and explained as if they involved the dogma of his divine nature, 
it may be well to show, that some, if not all, of them are susceptible of an 
interpretation which harmonizes better with the unequivocal language of 
Peter and Paul, and of Jesus himself, that he was, not only in appearance, 
but in reality, a " man." 

Whenever it is said that God appeared to Jacob, or redeemed him, 
the meaning is, that God operates, not immediately, but by the instru- 
mentality of an angel. . . . Some, who look very superficially on Sacred 
Scripture, assert that this is to be understood of the Messiah. — 
Abridged from Bishop Tostat on Gen. xlviii. 15, 16. 

When God is said to " appear " to any of the patriarchs, we are not 
so to understand it as if they had, or could have, a visible representation 
of him ; but only that he signified his will unto them either in a vision, 
or by some sign, or by an angel. If they understood that the message 
was from heaven, the " Lord God " was said to have " appeared " to 
them ; but that appellation respects not the appearance itself, the visible 
representation, but is the title of the Supreme Being, whose will was 
revealed unto them. Or, if the [Arian] translation may be admitted, 
thon " the Jehovah of God " can mean only the angel of the Lord, 
without any foundation for supposing it to mean the Lord Christ. — 
Dr. Benjamin Dawson : Illustration of Texts, p. 8. 

It is often said, that the Lord, the Most High God, " appeared " to 
the patriarchs, to Moses, and tr the prophets, the ancestors of the 






WHO APPEARED TO MOSES AND OTHERS. 415 

Jews; but, according to Jesus Christ's rule [John v. 37], the appear- 
ance, form, or shape which they saw was not the appearance of the 
Lord God himself; for never, at any time, did they see his shape. 
Again, it is often said that the Most High God spake to the patriarchs, 
to Moses, and to the prophets ; but our Lord affirms that they never 
heard his voice at any time. How shall we reconcile this seeming 
inconsistency ? The true solution, according to the Scriptures, is this ; 
that the Lord God never spake or appeared in person, but always by 
a proxy, nuncius, or messenger, who represented him, and spake in 
his name and authority. It was this messenger of Jehovah, or angel 
of Jehovah, who appeared unto Moses, Exod. iii. 2, and who is called, 
in ver. 4, " Jehovah " or Lord (whence it is evident that he was no 
created human being) ; and who spake to Moses, in ver. 5, saying, 
" Draw not nigh hither," &c. ; " I am the God of Abraham," ver. 6 ; 
and " I am that I am," ver. 14. All which words were pronounced 
by an angel, but are true, not of the angel, but of God, whom he 
represented. So a herald reads a proclamation in the king's name 
and words, as if the king himself were speaking. The word " Angel," 
both in the Greek language and in the Hebrew, signifies " a messen- 
ger," or nuncius, " an ambassador ; " one who acts and speaks, not in 
his own name or behalf, but in the name, person, and behalf of him 
who sends him. Thus the word is frequently rendered in our autho- 
rized translation ; and if it had always been rendered " the messenger 
of the Lord," instead of " the angel of the Lord," the case would have 
been very plain. — Dr. T. Hart well Horne : Introduction to the 
Study of the Holy Scriptures, part ii. book ii. chap. 7, sect. 6, 12. 

Many of the Christian fathers, who unfortunately caught the pas- 
sion of allegorizing the Holy Scriptures, or of converting them on all 
occasions into spiritual mysteries, from the later Platonists, the example 
of Philo, and the practice of the Jewish Rabbis, have considered " the 
angel," in this remarkable passage [Exod. iii. 2], as the second person 
of the Holy Trinity ; and this opinion seems to have been too hastily 
adopted by some of our best commentators and old divines. On a 
critical examination of the text, it will appear perhaps that there is 
nothing to favor this mode of interpretation but the zealous desire of 
pro\ing, on all possible occasions, the pre-existent state of the ever- 
sacred Messiah. To the usual interpretation of this passage, there are, 
among others, the following objections : 1. The prepositive article, or 
emphatic prefix, fi, in Hebrew is omitted before ^& Jfa« — 2. In refer- 
ring to this remarkable incident, the proto-martyr Stephen says. Acts 



416 CHRIST NOT "THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH" 

vii. 30, " There appeared to him," i.e. Moses, " in the wilderness of 
Mount Sina, an angel of the Lord." The definite article " the," there- 
fore, has, on this and other occasions, been improperly used in our 
translation. — 3. Much stress has been laid on the words of the 
original, tlW ^i>^> " an angel of Jehovah ; " but it is used also to 
denote the angel that " smote the Assyrians," 2 Kings xix. 35, whose 
destruction all commentators now ascribe to the operation of a phy- 
sical cause in the hand of God ; and it is employed to designate the 
angel " that came up from Gilgal to Bochim," Judg. ii. 1, where our 
translators have properly rendered it " an angel of the Lord," and 
put " messenger " in the margin. — 5. A more powerful objection 
arises from the reference which our blessed Lord himself makes to this 
very passage, where he tells the Jews, that the declaration, " I am the 
God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob," was 
spoken by God, that is, by divine communication, without precisely 
defining the manner in which the Jews understood that form of 
expression. Now, had the Messiah himself been the speaker on this 
occasion, in his pre-existent state, would he have said to the Saddu- 
cees, " Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God ? " 
Matt. xxii. 31; and would he thus have identified himself in name 
and character with the Father ? Those who think this probable will 
not find a similar example throughout the whole of the Bible. — It 
has been said in favor of the usual interpretation of this and other 
divine appearances in the Old Testament, that the ancient Jewish 
Rabbis explained them by a reference to their expected Messiah. But 
it should be recollected, that the oldest of their comments on the 
Hebrew Scriptures are comparatively of very modern date, and, with 
respect to doctrines, are of no authority. They imported from 
Babylon, and the regions of their captivity, many notions respecting 
appearances, angels, demons, and other matters, which belonged not 
to their ancient Scriptures. On many points of doctrine, therefore, 
they were prone to error and superstition, but more particularly on 
all occasions that related to their promised Messiah. — It is not the 
object of these remarks to controvert in the least the acknowledged 
doctrine of the pre-existence of the heavenly Messiah. The reality of 
this doctrine forms no part of the present question ; which is, whether 
our blessed Lord, as the second person of the Holy Trinity, appeared 
in his individual and appropriate character to Moses on the present 
occasion, or to any of the patriarchs before him. Those who think 
there is no sufficient ground for believing this will feel their opinion 



WHO APPEARED TO MOSES AND OTHERS. 417 

strengthened perhaps by the consideration, that it is not recognized in 
the Liturgy or Articles of our church, and that there is no trace of 
any such doctrine to be found throughout the writings of the evan- 
gelists and apostles. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
indeed, says (chap. i. 1, 2), " God, who at sundry times and in divers 
manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath 

these last days spoken unto us by his Son." Now, as the " last 
days " meant that period which commenced with the advent of the 
Messiah, it is an intimation by the apostle, that he had not spoken 

men before : otherwise, the nature of the subject required that 
be should have mentioned it — Abridged from John Hewlett : 
Commentaries, vol. L pp. 286-8, 561-2. 

A great number of authorities of a similar nature might be cited ; but 
the passages in which divine or angelic appearances are spoken of in the 
Old Testament will be taken up in their order, and explained, in the next 
volume. 

§ 2. Christ's being " sent " or " proceeding from God," and his 
" coming down from Heaven," Phrases signifying that he 
had received the fullest instruction and authority from 
the Father. 

Whatever we receive by the special gift of God is said " to descend 
rom heaven." Thus, John vi. 58 : " This is that bread which came 
down from heaven." James i. 17 : " Every good gift is from above, 

ad cometh down from the Father of lights." Chap. hi. 15-17 : 
" This wisdom descendeth not from above," &c. In accordance with 

lis sense, our Lord asked the Pharisees, concerning the baptism of 
John, " Whence was it ? From heaven, or of men ? " Matt. xxi. 25 ; 

ad the new Jerusalem is said to " come down out of heaven, from 

jod," Rev. hi. 12. — Philip Limborch : Theologia Christiana, 
lib. iii. cap. 15, § 4. 

When the Scriptures speak of Jesus Christ being " sent " into the 
world, they always refer to his commission from God to minister to 
the world, that is, to men; and respect not the time either of his 
birth or conception. In like manner, John the Baptist is said to be 
u sent from God," when he came to preach the baptism of repentance. 

It is very common with our Lord to distinguish himself as 

the Messiah by such like expressions as these, — of having " seen 
God," " learned of God," " proceeded forth from God," " come down 
from heaven," &c. &c. Which manner of speaking has given occasion 



418 IMPORT OF CHRIST'S "BEING SENT FROM GOD." 

to divines to busy themselves about the metaphysical nature and 
existence of Christ. But it is very plain that these expressions can 
have no manner of reference thereto, and that from these two con- 
siderations, — 1. Because, wherever they occur, the context is sure to 
determine that our Lord speaks in reference to his office on earth ; 
2. Because, to suppose these expressions to relate to his metaphysical 
nature and existence, we must be forced to interpret them literally ; 
which would make the greatest confusion among our ideas, and lay 
the foundation of the most absurd, impious, and contradictory opinions 
and tenets. Our Lord, therefore, must mean by them to assert, that 
he alone had a perfect knowledge of the will and counsels of God, 
which no man before him ever had ; that God committed to him the 
full revelation of himself, and enabled him to declare and manifest 
the one true God to the world, as clearly as if the Son of man had 
actually ascended up into heaven, and there seen God and the things 
of the heavenly world, and then had come down from heaven with 
grace and truth, as Moses from the mount with the law. Jesus 
Christ, having such knowledge and revelation of the will of God as 
this, together with all power and judgment, doth with the utmost 
propriety use these expressions concerning himself, and that by way 
of appropriation and prerogative not belonging to Moses, John the 
Baptist, or any of the prophets ; who, though true prophets, were still 
not from heaven, but of the earth, — brought not that heavenly light 
which was the life of men. In God only was this life, and with him 
was it hid from the foundation of the world ; neither did it shine forth 
to the world till the coming of Christ, or the manifestation of God in 
the flesh. — Benjamin Dawson : Illustration of Texts of Scripture, 
pp. 6, 7; 104-6. 

The work from which we have just quoted forms the substance of eight 
sermons preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, in the years 1764 
and 1765, by permission of the Lord Bishop of London, for the Lecture 
founded by Lady Moyer. Dr. Dawson was a zealous but liberal adherent 
of the church of England, who in his own way defended this her dogma, 
that " in unity of the Godhead there be three persons of one substance, 
power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." But, 
though throughout the work he strenuously opposes the opinions held by 
Arians and Socinians as to the nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit, his 
interpretations of texts adduced in the controversy on this subject are, m 
general, tjnitarian ; and, with the exception sometimes of a peculiar phra- 
seology, might well be followed by a bel:<3ver in the simple humanity of 
our Lord. 



CHRIST'S DIVINE SONSHIP. 419 



SECT. III. — CHKIST'S SONSHIP NOT IMPLYING AN ESSENTIALL1 
DIVINE NATURE, BUT HIS BEING THE MESSIAH, HIS MORAI 
RESEMBLANCE TO GOD, AND GOD'S LOVE TOWARDS HIM. 

Behold the Prince of Peace! 

The chosen of the Lord, 
God's well-beloved Son, fulfils 

The sure prophetic word. 

Needham. 

Is the appellation " Son of God," by itself, an evident and irrefra- 
gable argument that the Son is truly a partaker of the same divine 
nature with the Father? "VVe answer: If this appellation alone be 
considered, and no regard had to other Scripture passages by which 
the Deity of the Son is established, it may be clearly shown to be 
insufficient to prove this doctrine ; for it is certain, that, on account 
of the gracious communication of the divine majesty, the title " Son of 
God " is attributed to our Lord Jesus Christ in respect to his human 
nature. — Philip Limborch : Theol. Christy lib. i. cap. 17, § 10. 

That the title " Son of God," when applied to Jesus our Lord and 
Saviour, is the same as " Christ," the Ambassador of God, sent by him 
for our salvation, no one can doubt who consults those passages in 
which, in themselves, or with others compared together, either the 
word " Christ " is, by way of interpretation, connected with " Son of 
God," as Matt. xvi. 16 j xxvi. 63. Luke iv. 41. John i. 49; — or for 
this name, found in one text, is substituted in another the name 
" Christ," as Matt, xxvii. 40, 43, comp. Mark xv. 32. 1 John v. 1, 
comp. ver. 5 and chap. iv. 2 ; — or the phrases " Son of God " and 
" Son of man" are interchanged, as Mark xiv. 61, comp. ver. 62 and 
Matt. xxvi. 63, 64. John v. 25, comp. ver. 27 ; — or the Son of God 
is so described that to him are attributed what would be unsuitable 
unless applied to him as a man, an instance of which occurs in Luke 
i. 32, scq . . I know of no passage in Sacred Scripture in which this 
title can be understood of the divine nature of Christ. — J. Augustus 
Nosselt : Exerc. ad S. Scrlpturarum Interpretationem, pp. 130-1. 

We hold it to be clear from the import of the terms employed, 
and from the context of innumerable passages, that this name, " the 
Son of God," is applied to Jesus as a man, and applied to him for this 
reason, among others, that he was " the image of the invisible God," 
and intimately united with him, as well as the object of his special 



420 CHRIST'S DIVINE SONSHIP 

favor. Every child knows, that, in the Sacred Scriptures, men are 
often called the sons of God, on account of some remarkable connec- 
tion with the Deity, or because they in some sense resembled God 
himself. Now, is it not evident that all these reasons join in one to 
render the name in question pre-eminently applicable to that man who 
sustained a relation to the Deity which no prophet ever had sustained 
(John i. 14 ; x. 38 ; xiv. 10) j and who, as the Scriptures explicitly 
inform us, was the image of the Father (Col. i. lo), and beloved 
above all the other sons of God? Matt. xvii. 5. Col. i. 13. John 
iii. 35. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the title Son of God 
would have been perfectly appropriate to Jesus, considered merely as 
a man. And it is no less clear that this interpretation harmonizes 
fully with the context of many passages ; such as Heb. i. 5. Rom. 
viii. 29, 32 ; but particularly John x. 31, a text often cited to oppugn 
our doctrine. — J. F. Flatt : Dissertation on the Deity of Christ ; in 
Biblical Repertory for 1829, new series, vol. i. pp. 170-1. 

The term " to beget " denotes, in many passages, not the commu- 
nication of the divine nature to the Son of God, but his appointment 
to the kingly office, or the Messiahship. Thus the passage, Ps. ii. 7, 
" Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," though often cited 
in the New Testament, is never brought to prove the divine nature of 
the Son of God, but is always supposed to refer to the confirmation 
of his Messiahship by his resurrection from the dead. The same 
might be said of many other passages in which similar phraseology is 
used. — G. C. Knapp : Christian Theology, sect, xliii. IIL (c). 

Dr. Knapp adds that " the name Son of God is, in some passages, given 
to Christ in designation of his higher nature, his equality with the Father, 
and his internal relation to him;" but, by the aid of other orthodox com- 
mentators, we intend to show, in future volumes, the utter lack of proof 
for supposing that in any one passage it is used to indicate a divine essence 
in Christ. 

According to Matt. i. 20, Luke i. 35, Jesus was born into the 
world in such a manner as no other ever was ; and, if applied to this 
circumstance, I see nothing improper in retaining the common ver- 
sion [" only-begotten "]. The term [/Liovoyevijg], however, may admit 
the sense of " dearly beloved," or " well-beloved." John only uses the 
term in reference to our l|Or-d t The Septuagint use it for TTP, 
Ps. xxii. 20 ; xxxv. 17 j and often render the same word uycnrTjTde, 
" beloved," Gen. xxii. 2, 12, 16. Jer. vi. 26. Amos viii. 10. Zech, 
xiL 10. — Dr. Benjamin Boothroyd on John i. 14. 



INDICATING OFFICIAL AND MORAL QUALITIES. 421 

Hera I trust I may be permitted to say, with all due respect for 
those who differ from me, that the doctrine of the eternal Sonship of 
Christ is, in my opinion, antiscriptural and highly dangerous. This 
doctrine I reject for the following reasons : 1. I have not been able to 
find any express declaration in the Scriptures concerning it. 2. If 
Christ be the Son of God as to his divine nature, then he cannot be 
eternal ; for " son " implies a father, and "father" implies, in reference 
to son, precedency in time, if not in nature too. " Father and son " 
imply the idea of generation ; and " generation " implies a time in which 
it was effected, and time also antecedent to such generation. 3. If 
Christ be Son of God as to his divine nature, then the Father is of ne- 
cessity prior, consequently superior, to him. 4. Again, if this divine 
nature were begotten of the Father, then it must be in time ; that is, 
there was a period in which it did not exist, and a period when it began 
to exist This destroys the eternity of our blessed Lord, and robs him 
at once of his Godhead. 5. To say that he was begotten from all 
eternity is, in my opinion, absurd ; and the phrase " eternal Son " is 
a positive self-contradiction. " Eternity " is that which has had no 
beginning, nor stands in any reference to time. " Son " supposes 
time, generation, and father, and time also antecedent to such genera- 
tion. Therefore the conjunction of these two terms, " Son " and 
" eternity," is absolutely impossible, as they imply essentially different 
and opposite ideas. — Dr. Adam Clarke on Luke i. 35. 

When Christ is called the image of the invisible God, the bright- 
ness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person, i.e. of 
him ; or the only-begotten of the Father, the Son of God ; God's own 
Son ; God's beloved Son ; his dear Son, &c, — I understand all this 
phraseology as descriptive of his mediatorial nature and station. I 
know, indeed, that many of these texts have been appropriated by 
some Trinitarians to prove the divine nature of Christ : in my ap- 
prehension, however, this has been done injudiciously, and without 
any solid reason. Texts of this class may be found : Matt. xvii. 5. 
John i. 14; x. 36; xiv. 10; iii. 35. Col. i. 13. Heb. i. 5. Rom. viii. 

29, 32 As Mediator, as Messiah, Christ was sent into the 

world ; as Son, he filled, and acted in, a subordinate capacity : how, 
then, can his being Son in such a sense prove him to be divine ? 
. . . Commonly and appropriately, it [the term Son of God] designates 
the incarnate Messiah, as born in a manner supernatural, Luke i. 35, 
comp. iii. 38 ; as the special object of divine love, Matt. xvii. 5. Col. 
i. 13. John iii. 35 ; and as exhibiting the best and highest resemblance 

36 



4:22 CHRIST'S DIVINE SONSHIP 

of the Father, Col. i. 15. Heb. i. 3. John i. 14; x. 38; xiv. 10. 

Would theologians keep these ideas in view, I cannot help thinking 
they might be able to understand each other better, and to reason 
more conclusively. — Moses Stuart : Letters to Channing ; in 
Miscellanies, pp. 158-9, 164-5. 

The writer, however, says that the apostles sometimes use the term Son 
of God as a proper name, and as designating a distinction in the Godhead 
which he believes to be eternal; but, judging from Heb. i. 1-3, the only 
passage he refers to in proof of his opinion, we may without hesitation 
affirm, that the meaning which he himself attaches to the title in the above 
extract, as implying Christ's " resemblance to the Father," is far more pro- 
bable, and that the apostles had no belief whatever in eternal distinctions 
in the essence of God. 

There is a very large class of texts, which, either directly or by 
implication, make the Son of God inferior to the Father, and depend- 
ent from him. 1. The Son prays to the Father, John xvii. 1 ; xi. 41. 
He prays as the Son ; prays that he may be glorified or honored by 
the Father as the Son. This certainly implies that as the Son he is 
dependent. 2. He avows his inferiority to the Father, and his de- 
pendence from him : John xiv. 28. Mark xiii. 32. John v. 19. Matt. 
xx. 23. 3. "When the Son claims authority and power, he always 
represents them as received by donation from the Father, and, con- 
sequently, not originally and essentially his own : Matt. xi. 27 ; xxviii. 
18. John v. 26, 27; vi. 57; viii. 54; x. 18; xvii. 2, 3, 6. 4. The 
Son is subordinate and subject to the Father : John vi. 38-40 ; xii. 
49, 50 ; xvii. 4 ; iii. 16. 5. It w r as the Son of God that was given ; 
the Son that was sent ; the Son that was born, that agonized in Geth- 
semane, that died upon the cross, that was raised from the dead by 
the Father, was exalted to the right hand of God, was constituted the 
head of the church, &c. Nothing of all this can be predicated of 
Divinity ; and it consequently shows, that, as the Son of God, Jesus 
is a man. — The apostles have given the same view of his Sonship. 
One or two texts only must suffice here : Heb. v. 5-9. All this [all 
that is expressed in this passage] is said of Jesus as the Son of God. 
He did not glorify himself, but was glorified by the Father ; he did not 
constitute himself a priest, but was made such : both his Sonship and 
his priesthood were derived from the Father's good pleasure. As the 
Son, he desired to be delivered from death ; as the Son, he prayed to 
the Father, who alone could save him from it ; as the Son, he suffered, 
and learned obedience by his sufferings ; as the Son, he was made 



INDICATING OFFICIAL AND MORAL QUALITIES. 423 

perfect, and was constituted the Author of salvation, by the will of the 
Father. Is it possible that the inspired author who wiote these 
things could have thought, that, as the Son, Jesus is God ? Certainly 
not. Every sentence in this passage shows, that, with regard to his 
Sonship, he considered him a man. 1 Cor. xv. 24-28 : Here the 
apostle describes the glory of the Son of God, in his universal reign 
over the creatures of God, as one which God the Father had given 
him ; for it is He that put all things under his feet ; and, in his 
highest glory, he, as the Son, is still subject to the Father, and the 
Father is all in all, — all in the Son, as well as in every creature in 
the universe. Can it be, that, when St. Paul gave this account of the 
Son of God, he considered him, as the Son, divine and equal with 
the Father ? Certainly not. . . . We are told, indeed, that, inasmuch 
as Jesus Christ is not called a Son, but the Son, the use of the definite 
article, when the application of the title is made to him, shows that he 
is the Son of God in a sense peculiar to himself, and in which there 
can be no other Son of God, and, consequently, in a sense in which he 
is equal with the Father. But how can this consequence follow ? A 
son is not necessarily equal with his father. In some respects, he 
never can be equal with him : he must necessarily be younger than 
his father ; neither does the father derive his existence from the son, 
but the son from the father. But, passing over this ground of objec- 
tion, we call Homer the poet, and Demosthenes the orator, and the 
first William of the kings of England the conqueror. Does this 
phraseology imply that there have been no other poets or orators or 
conquerors ? The use of the definite article with the title Son of God, 
when it is applied to Christ, does indeed designate him as sustaining 
the relation of Sonship in a sense peculiar to himself; but the differ- 
ence which it marks between him and other sons is not a difference of 
nature, but a difference of measure. — Abridged from Dr. Lewis 
Mayer, in the Biblical Repository for January, 1840 ; second series, 
vol. iii. pp. 150-4. 

Amid all the influences favorable tc a belief in the essential Deity of 
Christ, there is perhaps none so paramount in the orthodox mind as the 
tinscriptural sense which is attached to the title " Son of God," and similar 
expressions, applied in the New Testament to our Lord. Forgetting that 
God is an infinite Spirit and a universal Parent, the Father of all who have 
been created in his moral image, and especially of those who devote their 
faculties and thoir lives to his service, Christians in general have been prone 
to form material conceptions respecting his natu v e, an 3 to regard him in th« 



4:24 CHRIST'S DIVINE SONSHIP. 

character of an Omnipotent and Supreme Man, — the mightiest, indeed, ot 
Potentates, but still with human passions and feelings; not as infinitely 
blessed in his single and glorious being, but as producing other existences 
with an essence and with attributes identical with his own, rejoicing in the 
company of his fellows, of whom he is the Origin and Head, and holding 
with them converse and counsel of an ineffable kind. One of these divine 
persons was the Son of God, and another the Holy Ghost; each of them 
equal in nature, power, and glory with the Father, from whom they derived 
their being and their qualities. This, as has already been at some length 
shown, is Trinitarianism; at least, one of its forms, — the Athanasian, — that 
which has been most commonly defended by divines, professed by the laity, 
but, because contradictory in its language, not steadily and fully believed 
by any one. 

But the idea of Christ's having been in essence the Son of God, either 
from all eternity or for an indefinite and inconceivable time before the crea- 
tion of the world, has been so deeply stamped into the heart of Christendom 
by the creed and the catechism, that, whatever doubts may be entertained 
as to the absolute equality of the Son with the Father, there is little or no 
difficulty felt in supposing Jesus to have the same nature as God; as little, 
indeed, as in regarding Isaac to possess the same nature as his father, Abra- 
ham. With views of the Divinity so low and so human do men take the 
Bible into their hands, and despoil the titles " Son of God," u the only- 
begotten or well-beloved of the Father," of all their moral and celestial 
beauty, by investing them with significations earthly and unspiritual. 

Happily, however, all Christians will not be bound with the bands, or be 
compelled to read with the glasses, of an Athanasius. Some will cast 
aside the swaddling-clothes of a childish and semipagan age, and, with a 
clearer and more heavenly vision, discern the truth as it is in Jesus, instead ' 
of groping amid the dim dogmas and unrealities that issued from the coun- 
cils and the schools. Fraught with this free and more simple spirit are the 
sentiments we have just quoted, — sentiments the truth and excellence of 
which, in the main, must, we think, be perceived by every dispassionate 
reader of the Bible. 

The Christ of the Holy Scriptures was no natural or essential Son of 
God; no physical or metaphysical emanation from the Father; no eternally 
begotten person or being; no second person of the Godhead, or of a Triune 
Deity; no God-man, possessed of properties destructive of each other; — 
but a man the most highly chosen and approved of God; the divinest of 
God's messengers and prophets, raised up and appointed by God to be the 
Redeemer of the world; filled with all the exuberance of God's spirit, — 
blessed by all the tenderness of the Father's love; more than a son of God, 
because more devoted than others to his heavenly Father; the Son of God, 
the only-begotten and best beloved of God, because distinguished above all 
God's children — whether prophets or philosophers — by a deeper insight 
into God's designs, by a holier love for his character, by a more devout and 
reverent submission to his will. 






CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 425 



SECT. IV. — CHRIST NOT CALLED " GOD," IN THE HIGHEST SENSE 
OF THE TERM. 

A god on earth thou art. — Shakbpeare. 

In a figurative sense, $Ebg [" God "] signifies " he who acts by the 
authority and command of God; he who on the earth represents 
the Deity." Thus magistrates and judges are called " gods," John 
x. 34, 35, comp. Ps. lxxxii. 6. Exod. xxii. 28. Ps. xcvii. 9 ; as also 
angels and princes, 1 Cor. viii. 5. Exod. vii. 1. — J. F. Schleusner : 
Lexicon in Novum Testamentum, art. Qebc, 4. 

These [the passages which apply to Christ the unqualified appella- 
tion " God "] are not decisive in the present inquiry ; for although 
they imply divine honor in some sense, yet, as it is possible the term 
may be employed in a secondary or figurative sense, they cannot be 
appealed to as necessarily denoting full and supreme Divinity. — 
Joseph Haven, Jun., in the New Englander for February, 1850 ; 
voL viii. (new series, vol. ii.) p. 9. 

To prevent mistake, it is but right to state that the author of this extract 
notices John i. 1, 3; Rom. ix. 5; 1 John v. 20; Tit. ii. 13, as texts which 
speak of Christ as God in the highest sense. He says that Heb. iii. 4 is 
"perhaps justly regarded as somewhat obscure." 

Psalm xlv. 6, axd Heb. i. 8. 

The Hebrew word EVi^a, in the text, designates the rank of a 
judge and sovereign ; as if the Psalmist, in connecting it with that 
of the " throne " of the Messiah, meant to say that Jesus should be 
appointed by Ins Father the Judge of the living and the dead, possess 
the throne of David his ancestor, and reign over the true Israel . . . 
during all eternity. — Augustin CALMET on Ps. xlv. 6. 

It will be proper to lay aside from this discussion the conside.Mtion 
of Christ's divine nature, not because we deny that doctrine, or think 
that no regard should be paid to it in treating of the regal powej of 
Christ, but because, wherever they speak of him in the character of a 
sovereign, the sacred writers apply that imagery to him as man. . . . 
We have no hesitation in referring Heb. i. 8, 9, particularly to the 
human nature of Christ, and, with the distinguished interpreters who 
follow the great Grotius, to render 6 Opovoc gov 6 #*3c, " God is thy 

36* 



426 CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 

throne ; " that is, God has conferred on thee regal authority j the 
word " throne " being used by the metonymy of the sign for the thing 
signified, and of the effect for the efficient cause. Thus " throne " is 
substituted for Him who set Christ on the throne, just as our Lord 
is often called " life," instead of him who imparts life ; and as the 
Philippians, chap. iv. 1, are termed " the joy and crown " of Paul, 
because they refreshed his mind, and held him in honor. In the 
forty-fifth Psalm, from which the quotation is taken, there are no 
traces of the Deity of Christ ; and since the words as they occur in 
this chapter of Paul's, together with the context, speak clearly of 
Christ's human nature, they cannot form an address to him as God. — » 
John Augustus Nosselt: Opuscula, fasc. ii. pp. 355-6, 358-9. 

Isa. vii. 14, and Matt. i. 23. 

Here Christ is not manifestly called " God j " but the name " Em- 
manuel " is given to that son to intimate that God would be merciful 
to the human race. For God is said to be with those whom he 
{avors. — Erasmus : Apologia ad J. Stunicam ; Op., torn. ix. p. 310. 

The name " Immanuel " denotes the certain aid of God against the 
Syrians and Israelites, and his preservation of the city in opposition to 
Sennacherib. — Grotius on Isa. vii. 14. 

There is a presence of favor and distinction whereby God is said 
to be, in a peculiar manner, with those whom he loves and blesses 
above others. In this regard, the child here spoken of is justly called 
* Emmanuel," because, as St. Paul speaks, " God was in him recon- 
ciling the world to himself ; " . . . and again, by him they " who were 
sometimes afar off are made nigh, have access to the Father, are 
accepted in the Beloved," 2 Cor. v. 19. Eph. ii. 13, 18, 19 ; i. 6. — 
Dr. George Stanhope : Comment on the Epistles and Gospels, 
vol. iv. p. 198. 

But the dean afterwards explains the title as indicative of the Saviour's 
divine nature. 

What you say respecting the argument in favor of Christ's divine 
nature, from the name given him in Matt. i. 23, accords in the main 
with my own views. To maintain, as some have done, that the name 
u Immanuel " proves the doctrine in question, is a fallacious argument. 
Is not Jerusalem called " Jehovah our righteousness " ? And is Jeru- 
salem divine, because such a name is given to it ? — Moses Stuart : 
Jjttters to Channing , in Miscellanies, p. 148. 






CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 427 

ISA. ix. 6. 

This [viz., " God "] is another name by itself, and not " the mighty 
God," as it is commonly rendered; the next word, ^123, "mighty" 
or " strong," being another of his names. The word Ja, signifying 
u God," doth also signify " strong ; " but, because it is most commonly 
used when God is spoken of, it is everywhere rendered " God." Yet 
from this we cannot firmly prove him to be God, no more than other 
men who have this name. Moses was Aaron's god ; and there is so 
much proof besides even in this place, that we need not to argue from 
hence ; for he that is the everlasting Father, and of whose government 
there is no end, is God indeed, without beginning or end. — Abridged 
from Dr. John Mayer in loc. 

The Hebrew words, translated, in the common version, " the everlasting 
Father," are rendered by Bishop Lowth and others, " the Father of the 
everlasting age." 

Tiai ia, " the mighty God," — thus the words signify, and in this 
sense are only true of our Saviour Jesus Christ. But ^ has a lower 
signification, and may be rendered " potentate ; " and in this, which I 
call the first and literal sense, they are applicable to Hezekiah. — 
Samuel White in loc. 

John i. 1. 

It [the appellation loyog] signifies, among the Jews and other an- 
cient people, when applied to God, every thing by which God reveals 
himself to men, and makes known to them his will. ... In this passage,, 
the principal proof does not lie in the word Myoc [" revealer of God "], 
nor even in the word &ebc [" God "], which in a larger sense is often 
applied to kings and earthly rulers, but to what is predicated of the 
/loyof, viz., that he existed from eternity with God ; that the world 
was made by him, &c. — George C. Knapp : Christian Theology, 
sect, xxxvii. 1. 

Perhaps no Scripture expression is more frequently adduced, or is quoted 
with a greater air of triumph, on behalf of the essential Deity of Christ, 
than this, — that "the word was God; 1 ' the argument being founded on 
two assumptions: 1. That John applied the term Logos, "word," as a 
personal designation of our Lord before his appearance in the flesh; and, 
2. That he meant to call him " God " in the absolute or highest sense. But, 
orthodox as Dr. Knapp was, and unwisely resting his belief in part on the 
phrase, " in the beginning," which, as admitted by Professor Stuart and 



428 CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 

others, does not of itself indicate eternity, he frankly owns that the " prin- 
cipal proof" of the Trinitarian doctrine drawn from the passage does not 
lie in the words " Logos " and u God; " and, for this admission, he assigns 
what to us appears to be a very satisfactory reason. 

John intends to say, that the antemundane Logos is in such fellow- 
ship with God, stands in such a relation to him, that he may be called 
" God." If, now, there is any historical, though it may be a mediate, 
connection between the representation of John and Philo, then is tiebc 
[" God "] to be taken in the same sense in which Philo, in order to 
distinguish the Logos from the absolute God (6 debc), calls him simply 
foof, without the article, and even 6 devrepog deb^ " the second God," 
but with the express addition that this last expression is used only 
figuratively. If, as we have seen, John understood by the Logos a 
real divine person, and yet, as a Christian apostle, certainly adhered to 
the monotheistic idea of God in a higher and far purer degree (xvii. 3 ; 
1 John v. 20) than Philo, — then must he, not less than Philo, have un- 
derstood " the word was God " in a figurative sense. Thus the meaning 
of debs would be nearly the same as that of tieloc, " divine." But this 
equivalence of tielog and tiebc is not allowed by New-Testament usage. 
We must, then, take $ebc, without the article, in the indefinite sense 
of a divine nature or a divine being, as distinguished from the definite 
absolute God, 6 $ebg, the avrodeoc of Origen. Thus the debg of John 
answers to "the image of God" of Paul, Col. i. 15. — Abridged from 
F. Lucke's Dissertation on the Logos, as translated in the Christian 
Examiner for May, 1849. 

John xx. 28. 

This has generally been considered an exclamation, and the words 
seem to admit it ; but to me the sense appears to be, " Yes ! he is 
truly my Lord and my God." The exclamation is a recognition of 
Jesus. I will not go so far as to conclude from these words, that he 
actually recognized, at the time, the divine nature of Christ, of which 
we have no trace amongst the apostles, previous to the effusion of the 
Holy Ghost j at least, it was not the common doctrine of the Jewish 
theology. But he rather names him in a figurative sense — as one 
risen from the dead — his god, whom he will always honor and adore ; 
in the same way as Virgil, in his first Eclogue, only still stronger, 
addresses Augustus : " For he shall always be my god : the tender 
lamb from our folds shall often stain, his altar." — J. D. Michaelis; 
The Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 272-3. 



CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 429 

It may be justly doubted whether the so lately incredulous, because 
prejudiced and unenlightened, disciple had then, or at any time before 
the illumination of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, any complete notion 
of the divine nature of Jesus, as forming part of the Godhead ; yet 
there is reason to think that the Jews held in a certain sense the 
Divinity of the Messiah, though they had no adequate conception of 
the true nature of it — Dr. S. T. Bloomfield on John xx. 28 ; in 
Recensio Synopticcu 

Acts xx. 28. 

The true reading seems to be rov Kvplov, " of the Lord." ... In the 
Nestorian controversy, many affirmed that nowhere in Sacred Scripture 
occurs the expression, " blood of God." The reading &eov, " of God," 
rests chiefly on the authority of the Latin Vulgate. The author of 
the ancient Syriac version reads rov Xpiorov, " of Christ. The manu- 
scripts which have food nal nvpiov, " of Lord and God," are recent, 
and of very little value. — J. G. Rosexmuller in loc. 

Acts xx. 28, where $eov [" God "] is the common reading, and 
Kvplov [" Lord "] is the one more recently preferred by most critics, 
... I would gladly view as a textus emendandus, and cheerfully sub- 
stitute Kvplov for -d-eov, inasmuch as cdfia -&eov [" blood of God "], which 
the common reading would imply, is an expression utterly foreign 
to the Bible. A God whose blood was shed must surely be a debc 
Sevrepoc [" secondary God "], as the Arians w r ould have it, and not the 
impassible and eternal God, which I believe the Logos to be. — Moses 
Stuart, in the Biblical Repository for April, 1838; voL xi. p. 315. 

It would appear, then, that, notwithstanding the many thousand times 
that this passage has been appealed to as containing decisive proof for the 
essential and eternal Divinity of Christ, the reading on which the argument 
rests is more favorable to the old Arian than to the Trinitarian view of our 
Lord's nature. 

Rom. ix. 5. 

It need not surprise us, that Christ in the flesh is called " God over 
all blessed for ever," since "God hath highly exalted him" in the 
human nature, " and given him a name above every name," &c, Phil, 
ii. 9 ; and " hath put all things under his feet," 1 Cor. xv. 27 ; " and 
will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath 
ordained," Acts xvii. 31. — Dr. James Mackxight on Rom. ix. 5. 

The only way in which any avoiding of its force [the force of this 
text] is practicable, seems to be, to assert that 6 u>v eni kovtuv deo< 



430 CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 

is meant to designate merely the supremacy of Christ as Mediator, 
in which capacity he is quasi Deus, and in the like capacity is styled 
tJ Vi5>$ [" God "] in Ps. xlv. In pursuing this course, more probability 
than is now exhibited in the various evasions that I have above noticed, 
and also more ingenuousness, might be shown. But still, &c. — 
Moses Stuart, in Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. 

With the aid of other learned Trinitarians, we mean to show, in the 
proper place, that the words rendered, in the common version, " Christ 
came, who is over all, God blessed for ever," may be translated, in accord- 
ance with Paul's usual sentiments, as a doxology to the Father: " Christ 
came. God, who is over all, be blessed for ever." 

1 Tim. iii. 16. 

In reference to the Arian hypothesis, this place can scarcely be 
urged as decisive against it, unless in connection with others. Arians 
do not deny that the title " God " is given to Jesus Christ in the New 
Testament, though they are far from thinking him to be true or 
supreme God. His manifestation in the flesh has, accordingly, been 
sometimes explained by them of the Word, or Logos, uniting himself 
to the man Christ Jesus, and supplying in him the place of a human 
soul. If $ebg be interpreted of a divine nature simply, as some take 
it, it is easy, say they, to perceive how a divine nature was exhibited 
by Jesus in the precepts he delivered, the actions he performed, the 
pure doctrines he inculcated, and the patience in suffering he evinced. 
Such is the way in which some Arians reason ; and to refute them 
from the present reading, #edc, is difficult. Other considerations must 
be urged against them ; for I cannot see that $ebg is of overwhelming 
weight, in opposition to their particular opinions. — Dr. Samuel 
Davidson : Lectures on Biblical Criticism, pp. 160-1. 

The passage here cited from Dr. Davidson is omitted in the last edition 
of his work; or, to speak with greater accuracy, it does not appear in that 
entitled ,l A Treatise on Biblical Criticism," so much altered that he calls it 
in his Preface " a new book," containing his *' latest and most mature judg- 
ments." But in the latter work he says (vol. ii. p. 403), what is equally to 
our purpose, that the text " is by no means decisive either for or against the 
proper Divinity of Christ; " and that " too much stress has beea laid upon 
it in doctrinal controversies respecting the person of the Redeemer; " closing 
with an acknowledgment, that he " fully agrees " with Professor Stuakt 
in the remarks made by him in the Biblical Repository for January, 1832 
(vol. ii. p. 79); and which, because of^their appropriateness, we intend to 
quote in a future volume. 



CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 431 

Titus ii. 13. 

Why is he [Jesus Christ] here called " the great God " ? The 
reason may be, because in Jesus Christ the Father displays his good- 
ness, the greatness of his wisdom, truth, grace, John i. ; the greatness 
and " fulness of his Godhead bodily," Col. ii. 9. — Dr. Robert Gell : 
Remains, vol. ii. p. 418. 

Granting for a moment, what we think is improbable, that the title 
" great God," as well as '* Saviour," were here attributed to Christ, would 
not Dr. Gell's interpretation be demanded by a regard to the practice of 
St. Paul, whose usual manner is to speak of the Father as the original Source 
of all pre-eminence and greatness, and the Son as the agent, representative, 
or image of the Most High ? — In passing, we may notice that Gell does 
not interpret the phrase, " fulness of the Godhead bodily," of what is called 
the hypostatical union or the incarnation of God the Son, but of the Father's 
displaying his greatness and fulness in Christ. 

"The glorious appearing of the great God, and of our Saviour 
Jesus Christ." . . . The 6 peyaTiog tfedf, ml curyp qfiuv, of St. Paul in 
this place, denote the two persons whom our Lord expressed in the 
words, 6 na-rjp firifcv fiov [" The Father greater than I "]. Some 
eminently pious and learned scholars of the last and present century 
have so far overstretched the argument founded on the presence or 
absence of the article, as to have run it into a fallacious sophistry , 
and, in the intensity of their zeal to maintain the " honor of the Son," 
were not sensible that they were rather engaged in " dishonoring 
the Father." . . . Though our blessed Lord is indeed Deity, yet he 
is such by generation and communication of the paternal nature of his 
heavenly Father ; as he himself was always earnest to impress on the 
minds of his disciples. These observations are to be applied also to 
2 Pet i. 1. — Granville Penn : Supplemental Annotations to the 
Book of the New Covenant, p. 145. 

Heb. iii. 4. 

Most commentators, from Whitby to Stuart, suppose the words 
to be an argument to show the superiority of Christ over Moses, by 
showing that Jesus is God ; but that requires us to supply at the end, 
" And Christ is God." The argument, too, would be brought forward 
with an abruptness very unlike any other in the Epistle. The sense 
of the whole passage is, I think, well represented by Archbishop 
Newcome in the following paraphrase : " He who constituted, or set 
in order, any society, hath greater honor than that society, or any part 



432 CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 

of it. But Christ conducted the Mosaic dispensation as the visible 
Representative of God, John i. 18. I say, 'He who framed the 
household.' For every religious or civil body has some head, — 
the Israelites, for instance, when they were miraculously conducted 
out of Egypt, and received the law at Mount Sinai ; but the supreme 
and ultimate Head of all things is God." This view of the sense is 
confirmed by the learned researches of Dindorf and Kuinol, and 
leaves no real difficulty, except to account for the apostle's having 
subjoined this. — Dr. S. T. Bloomfield on Heb. iii. 4; in Greek 
Testament, fifth American, from the second London, edition. 

After a few more remarks, Dr. Bloomfield adds, that thus far he had 
written in the first edition of his work ; but that, although there was only a 
change of difficulties, he was half inclined to adopt the opinion of Professor 
Stuart, who interprets the word " God " here as applied to Christ. 

1 John v. 20. 
It might be a question, whether the word " this " refers here to 
God, or to the incarnate Son, in whom he has revealed himself. In 
either case, the practical import of the words is the same. The con- 
nection, however, leads us to regard the reference to God as the 
prominent one, since God is afterwards contrasted with idols. The 
apostle has just been contemplating Christ as the Mediator of this 
fellowship with God. Hence we must suppose that in conclusion he 
sets forth this one prominent thought : This God, with whom believers 
thus stand in fellowship through Christ, is the only true God, and 
hence is the primal Source of eternal life : through him alone, there- 
fore, we can become partakers of eternal life, in which is contained the 
sum of all good, as the highest good for the God-related spirit In 
him, therefore, we have all which we need for time and eternity. It 
is true, indeed, as we have seen, that Christ, as the only-begotten Son 
of God, is called by John the eternal Life which was with the Father, 
and which has appeared on earth in order to impart itself to man. 
With these words he commenced this Epistle. But it is also appro- 
priate, that, in closing, he should point to the primal Source, to Him 
who is himself that eternal Life which has poured itself forth into the 
only-begotten Son, and through him into humanity. — AUGUSTUS 
Neander: The First Epistle of John practically explained, pp. 317. 

The reason assigned by Neander for attributing to the Father the 
phrase " eternal life " may be regarded as a sufficient answer to Wakdlaw, 
Stuart, and others, who lay the chief stress on it for applying to Jesus 
Christ the whole clause. " This is the true God, and eternal life." ■ 



CHRIST NOT GOD IN THE HIGHEST SENSE. 433 

Jude 4. 

The translation in our English Bible ... I have adopted, not onl) 
because, according to it, two persons are spoken of as denied, - 
namely, " the only Lord God," and " our Lord Jesus Christ," — but 
because it represents Jude's sentiment as precisely the same with 
John's, 1 Epist. ii. 22, " He is the antichrist who denieth the Father 
and the Son." . . . Because the article is prefixed only to fidvov y)ebv 
[" the onl) God "], and not repeated before nvpcov i/fiuv 'l-qoovv Xptarbv 
[« our Lord Jesus Christ "], Beza is of opinion that these epithets, 
Ita-orr/v, $ebv, and Kvptov [" Sovereign," " God," and " Lord "], belong 
all to Jesus Christ. But the want of the article is too slight a founda- 
tion to build so important a doctrine on. For, in the following 
passages, John xvii. 3 ; Eph. v. 5 ; 1 Tim. v. 21, vi. 13 ; 2 Pet. i. 1, 2, 
"God" and "Jesus Christ" are mentioned jointly, with the article 
prefixed to one of them only ; yet every reader must be sensible that 
they are not one, but two distinct persons. Besides, dtcKOTrjc is a title 
not commonly given to Jesus Christ, whose proper title is 6 nvpcoc. — 
Dr. James Macknight : Translation of the Epistles. 

Oebv, " God," is omitted by A [the Alexandrian MS.], B [the Vati- 
can], C [the Ephrem], sixteen others, with Erpen's Arabic, the Coptic, 
^Ethiopic, Armenian, and Vulgate, and by many of the fathers. — Db. 
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary. 

Rev. i. 8. 

The alteration made in this text by Griesbach, viz., the omission 
of the clause, apxn kol t£7joc [" the beginning and the ending "], and 
the insertion of the word tfedc [" God "] after Kvptoc [" Lord "], appears 
to rest upon ample authority. . . . Since the description, " which is, 
and which was, and which is to come," is the same as that by which, 
almost immediately before, the Father is characterized, and distin- 
guished from the Spirit and the Son, it must, I think, be allowed, 
especially if Griesbach's text be taken for our guide, that these 
are the words of God, even the Father. — JosEP-n John Gurnet : 
Biblical Aotes, pp. 85-6. 

All the texts here slightly treated of will be discussed more at length in 
our future volumes, according to the order in which they occur in the Bible; 
and numerous other orthodox writers, of the highest standing, appealed to 
in support of the expositions which have been adopted by Unitarians. 

See " Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations of Unitarianism," 
part i. chap. 1, sect. 9, on the use of the word " God " as applied to Christ. 

37 



434 CHRIST TRAINED AND QUALIFIED BY GOD 



SECT. V. — CHRIST TRAINED BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE TO ACT A3 
THE MESSIAH. 

Christ is born, the great Anointed ; 

Heaven and earth his praises sing: 
Oh, receive whom God appointed 

For your Prophet, Priest, and King! 

Cawood 

Divine Providence had formed Jesus himself to be the supreme 
universal Teacher of mankind in such manner as was agreeable to his 
individual nature, his education, and the modes of thinking peculiai 
to his country and his time. It prepared him for his important work 
by means of the religious knowledge which was already contained in 
the Old Testament, and excited in his lofty mind the noble resolution 
to devote himself for the benefit of the whole human race ; so that 
Jesus had a lively assurance that he was appointed by the Deity to lay 
down his life for mankind, and that he had received power from God 
to raise again his dead body from the grave, in order thus to found a 
new religion for the human race, and to deliver from the punishment 
of sin those who were not rendered unworthy of salvation by their 
own voluntary guilt. . . . God has at all times, in the revelations which 
he has vouchsafed, made this condescension to mankind [an accommo- 
dation to human weakness], in order to communicate to them all 
necessary knowledge concerning himself; and has therefore provided, 
as the Teacher of the human race, a man, in whom was exhibited, as 
it were, a visible image of his own highest perfections, John xiv. 9. 
Heb. i. 3. — G. F. Seiler : Biblical Hermeneutics, §§ 264, 266. 

His whole history proves, that, even as a man, he [Christ] was not 
of the common and ordinary class, but one of those great and extra- 
ordinary persons of whom the world has seen but few ; but he was 
like other men in this respect, that his talents and intellectual faculties 
did not unfold themselves at once, but gradually, and were capable . of 
progressive improvement. Hence Luke records (ii. 52), that he 
TrpoEKiYii-e ootyia [" increased in wisdom "}. Hence, too, he learned 
and practised obedience to the divine command, and submission to 
the divine will, Heb. v. 8 ; he prepared himself for his office, &c. . . . 
Jesus was also learned in the Jewish law and all Jewish literature, 
although he had not studied at the common Jewish schools, nor with 
the lawyers : vide John vii. 15 ; . . cf. Matt* xiii. 54. Probably, divine 



TO ACT AS THE MESSIAH. 435 

Providence made use, in part, of natural means, in furnishing Jesus 
with this human knowledge. Mary was a relative of Elizabeth, the 
pious mother of John the Baptist, and a guest at her house, Luke i. 
26, 40. We may imagine, then, that Jesus received good instruction 
in his youth from some one of this pious, sacerdotal family. We see, 
from the first chapters of Luke, that Joseph and Mary belonged to a 
large circle of pious male and female friends, in whose profitable 
society Jesus passed his youth, and who contributed much to his 
education as a man, especially as they expected something great from 
him from his very birth, as appears from Simeon. — G. C. Rxapp : 
Christian Theology, sect, xciii. 

At a tender age, he [Christ] studied the Old Testament, and 
obtained a better knowledge of its religious value by the light that 
was within him than any human instruction could have imparted. 
Nor was this beaming forth of an immediate consciousness of divine 
things in the mind of the child, in advance of the development of his 
powers of discursive reason, at all alien to the character and progress 

of human nature, but entirely in harmony with it Although so 

many years of our Saviour's life are veiled in obscurity, we cannot 
believe that the full consciousness of a divine call which he displayed 
in his later years was of sudden growth. If a great man accomplishes, 
within a very brief period, labors of paramount importance to the 
world, and which he himself regards as the task of his life, we must 
presume that the strength and energies of his previous years were 
concentrated into that limited period, and that the former only consti- 
tuted a time of preparation for the latter. Most of all must this be 
true of the labors of Christ, the greatest and most important that the 
world has known. We have the right to presume that He who 
assumed as his task the salvation of the human race made his whole 
previous existence to bear upon this mighty labor. The idea of the 
Messiah, as Redeemer and King, streamed forth in divine light, from 
the course of the theocracy and the scattered intimations of the Old 
Testament, in full extent and clearness ; and in divine light he recog- 
nized this Messiahship as his own, and this consciousness of God within 
him harmonized with the extraordinary phenomena that occurred at 
his birth. But the negative side of the Messiahship, namely, its 
relation to sin, he could not learn from self-contemplation. . . Although 
his personal experience could not unfold this peculiar modification of 
the Messianic consciousness, many of its essential features were con- 
tinually suggested by his intercourse with the outer world. . . . We 



436 CHRIST TRAINED AND QUALIFIED BY GOD 

may assume, that when he reached his thirtieth year, fully assured of 
his call to the Messiahship, he waited only for a sign from God to 
emerge from his obscurity, and enter upon his work. This sign was 
to be given him by means of the last of God's witnesses under the 
old dispensation, whose calling it was to prepare the way for the new 
development of the kingdom of God, — by John the Baptist, the 
last representative of the prophetic spirit of the Old Testament. — 
Augustus Neander: Life of Jesus Christ, pp. 31, 41-2. 

In the New Testament, we learn that the great Captain of our 
salvation did not encounter the powers of darkness, or enter upon his 
work, till he was anointed by the Spirit of God : " The Spirit of the 
Lord God is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gos- 
pel to the poor : he hath sent me to. . . ." He, though a personage of 
such a divine and extraordinary character, yet, considered as an instru- 
ment in this work (with reverence be it spoken), was not qualified for 
it till the Spirit had descended upon him; and, when he went into 
the wilderness, he was filled with the Spirit. — Robert Hall : The 
Success of Missions ; in Works, vol. iii. p. 402. 

The sacred writers do not seem to have ever felt any dread in stating the 
same sentiment, that the Messiah was an instrument or agent in the hands 
of his Almighty Father to accomplish the salvation of man. 

It is from his [Christ's] discourses themselves that we are chiefly 
instructed in his pre-eminence as the great Prophet of God. . . Richly 
was he endowed, and abundantly qualified to be an instructive preacher. 
He did not rush into the ministry until his mind was thoroughly fur- 
nished for his work. For a long time he dwelt at Nazareth, diligently 
preparing himself for this high service ; and so well had he studied 
the Sacred Scriptures, that at twelve years of age he astonished the 
doctors of the temple, " both hearing them and asking them ques- 
tions." It was not till after his severe trial in the wilderness, where 
his faith and knowledge were put to the test of the most artful and 
severe of all opposers, nor until he was about thirty years of age, that 
he began his wonderful career. — Dr. Gardiner Spring : Glory of 
ChrisU vol. i. pp. 136-7. 

The writer of this passage very needlessly adds, that, " besides this, 
Jesus was God as well as man; " for surely he could not be the infinite and 
underived Source of all knowledge who " diligently prepared himself," by 
the study of the Old Testament, for entering on and pursuing that ministry 
of love with which God intrusted him. 



TO ACT AS THE MESSIAH. 437 

The years of his life which were most veiled in obscurity were full 
of preparatory discipline, wisely adapted to the sublimest ends. The 
lowly circumstances of his infancy, the severe toils of his youth, and 
the varied experience of his early manhood, were doubtless designed 
gradually to awaken the full consciousness of that divine call, and 
fortify him with that perfect mastery over adverse powers which he 
displayed on entering upon his public life. From an infinite diversity 
of sources, sublunary and celestial, Jesus imbibed energies of every 
kind, which, with irresistible concentrativeness, were at length em- 
ployed to redeem and renovate the world He was diviner 

than they [than the heralds of the ancient theocracy], — had more 
character, and therefore was habitually more majestic and calm. He 
was equally private in his habits of life, was even more conversant with 
nature than his predecessors on the heights of inspiration ; but he was 
imbued with Deity more than any man, relied incessantly on himself 
for augmented force, and exerted the greatest public energy, for the 
very reason probably that he threw abroad his heavenly grandeur from 
the shadows of the most humble sphere. ... At the outset, oppressed 
as he was by toil and exclusiveness, he strove to stand the first among 
our race, an independent thinker, struggling for the suffering of every 
class, with head, hands, and heart disinthralled. . . . All that was 
needed to make him a tender Friend, a perfect Teacher, and a mighty 
Redeemer, he acquired by experience on earth, and transmitted for its 
hope. — E. L. Magoon : Republican Christianity, or True Liberty, 
pp. 48, 63-4. 

If Jesus "gradually awakened to the consciousness of his divine call;" 
if the energies which he exerted for the redemption of the world were 
"imbibed from an infinite diversity of sources," both of heaven and earth; 
if he was superior to the old Jewish prophets, or more divine than they, 
because he was " more conversant with nature than his predecessors on the 
heights of inspiration ; if he was " imbued with Deity more than any man," 
and thus endowed, " relied incessantly on himself for augmented force; " if, 
at the commencement of his ministry, M he strove to stand the first among 
our race, an independent thinker;" and if "all that was needed to make 
him a tender Friend, a perfect Teacher, and a mighty Redeemer, he acquired 
by experience on earth" — surely, unless corrupted by an absurd hypothesis, 
common sense and universal reason will both exclaim, that this struggling, 
striving suffering personage, who obtained by inspiration and experience 
the requisites for acting as the Teacher and Saviour of mankind, could not 
be, at the same time, what Mr. Magoon in other places calls him, " Jeho- 
vah " or " God " himself, the inherent Possessor and absolute Fountain of 
all power and wisdom. 

37* 



438 IN HIS OFFICES AND QUALIFICATIONS, 



SECT. VI. — IN HIS OFFICES AND REQUISITE QUALIFICATIONS, CHRIST 
SUBORDINATE TO GOD. 

Behold my Servant ! see him rise 

Exalted in my might ! 
Him have I chosen, and in him 

I place supreme delight. 

Christian Psalmist. 

$ 1. Christ as a Divine Teacher, and a Worker of Miracles. 

When Christ appeals to his miracles in evidence of his Divinity, 
he does not suppose, that these, simply and in themselves, prove the 
Divinity of the person by whom they are performed ; for, though real 
miracles cannot be done without divine power, God has often conferred 
this gift on mere men. Miracles, therefore, by themselves, do not 
prove that those who perform them are in nature God, but only that 
their mission and doctrine are true and divine. Hence Christ ex- 
pressly says, " Though ye believe not me, believe the works " [John 
x. 38]. The apostles themselves performed many and great works, 
and in a more extraordinary manner than Christ did. What then? 
Do these miracles prove that the apostles were Gods by nature ? By 
no means. Though Christ was from eternity the true God, yet I 
assert that his miracles do not in themselves evince his Divinity, but 
the truth of his doctrine. — Abridged from Brentius ; apud Sandium, 
pp. 135-7. 

He to whom God, by doing miracles, gave testimony from heaven, 
must needs be sent from God ; and he who had received power to 
restore nafr re, and to create new organs, and to extract from incapaci- 
ties, and fi jm privations to reduce habits, was Lord of nature, and 
therefore of all the world. — Jeremy Taylor: Life of Jesus Christ t 
part ii. Disc. 14 ; in Works, vol. iii. p. 105. 

The bishop, however, inconsistently speaks of the great Messenger, who 
had " received " miraculous power, as evidencing by it the Divinity of his 
person. 

Jesus Christ, whilst he was on earth, delivered all his doctrines and 
precepts in his Father's name, or as one sent from him, and authorized 
to speak what he delivered in his name. He preached his doctrines, 
and delivered his sayings, to the world, by virtue of that Spirit with 
which he was anointed. The miracles he did on earth, in confirmation 



CHRIST SUBORDINATE TO GOD. 439 

of his mission and his doctrine, were also done by the assistance of the 
Holy Ghost. Moreover, our Lord declares he did his miracles by 
u the Father abiding in him." Being then in his state of humiliation, 
and emptied of the form of God, he acted, in things reciting imme- 
diately to his prophetic office, not as God, but only as a prophet sent 
from God ; not by the power of his divine nature, but of that Spirit 
by which he was anointed and sanctified to that office. Though, being 
also God of the same essence derived from the Father, he might do 
many other things by virtue of his Divinity, &c. — Abridged from 
Dr. Daniel Whitby : Preface to the Gospel of St. John ; in Comr 
mentary on the New Testament. 

We quote, without any hesitation, from this work of Dr. Whitby; for, 
though in his hitter years he retracted his Athanasian principles, and became 
a believer in the simple unity of God, his " Commentary on the New Testa- 
ment" is still regarded by Trinitarians as of high orthodox authority, and is 
often appealed to without the sliglftest mention being made of his having 
corrected, in his " Last Thoughts," the Trinitarian sentiments which he had 
therein propounded. 

He [Jesus] taught his great lessons of morality and religion, not as 
derived from the information of others, or from the dictates of his own 
reason, but as immediately conveyed to him from the Source of light 
and truth, from God himself. " Whatsoever I speak, even as the 
Father said to me, so I speak," John xii. 50. — Bishop Kurd : 
Sermons preached at Lincoln's Inn y vol. iii. (Sermon 4), pp. 65-6. 

This remark is in much greater accordance with the statements in the 
Gospels than the assertion made afterwards by the bishop, that Jesus 
" spake, by virtue of his own essential right, from himself, and in his own 
name." 

Christ, as the Messiah, received his commission from God, — every 
thing that related to the formation and establishment of the Christian 
institution, AH his private conversations with his disciples or others, 
he, as man, commanded and spoke through the constant inspiration 
of the Holy Spirit — Abridged from Dr. Adam Clarke on John 
xii. 49 

No one can carefully read the Xew Testament without feeling persuaded, 
that, as the Messiah, or God's anointed one, our Lord is the sum and sub- 
stance of all its teachings; and that, though Jewish and restricted in its first 
acceptation, this name comprehends whatever is most divine in Jesus, and 
interesting to his disciples. If, then, Jesus, as the Christ or Messiah, was 
indebted to God, as Dr. Clauke admits, for his commission to the human 



440 IN HIS OFFICES AND QUALIFICATIONS, 

race, and for " every thing that related to the formation and establishment " 
of his religion, then surely it would follow beyond doubt that he was not 
God himself, but subordinate and inferior to him. 

Some commentators, after Jerome and Theophylact, refer this 
authority, with which Christ spake, to his delivering the law in his 
own name, as the original framer, and not the mere interpreter, of it. 
But this seems to be somewhat at variance with the declarations made 
by him upon several occasions, that his doctrine was not his own, but 
His that sent him, John vii. 16; xvii. 18, and elsewhere. Hence 
Lightfoot and Whitby suppose that he spoke as a prophet, having 
authority from God to deliver his message ; not as the scribes, who 
merely interpreted the Scriptures according to the traditions of their 
forefathers. But the word k^ovala seems rather to denote the force 
and power with which he spake ; his persuasive eloquence, irresistible 
arguments, and perspicuous statements, so different from the trifling 
and frivolous disputations of the doctors and scribes. — William 
Trollope on Matt. vii. 29. 

He [Christ] himself frequently says, especially in the Gospel of 
John, that he performed the miracles which he wrought as man through 
a miraculous divine power, and as the Messenger of the Father. The 
case was the same as to his instruction. Neither Jesus himself nor 
the apostles ever alluded to his proper Divinity in such a way as to 
imply that it qualified him, as a man upon earth, to instruct, and work 
miracles. He had resigned his divine prerogatives, and his qualifica- 
tions are always considered as derived from the Father. But this free 
renunciation of the privileges which belonged to him as God did not 

exclude the use of them when occasion should require The New 

Testament everywhere teaches, that Christ, considered as a man, was 
qualified by God, for his office as Teacher, by extraordinary intellectual 
endowments ; like the prophets of old, and his own apostles in after- 
times, only in a far higher degree than they. John iii. 34 : God gave 
to him ovk etc fierpov to nvevfia [" the Spirit not by measure "]. The 
prophets had these endowments, but in a less degree : he, as the high- 
est Messenger of God, had them " without measure." Acts x. 38 : 
Ixpiow avrov 6 dsbc TrvevfiaTL uytL) ml 6vvu.au [" God anointed him 
with the Holy Spirit and with power "]. Jesus received these higher 
gifts of the Spirit, when John baptized him ; for he himself submitted 
of his own accord to this baptism, by which the Jews were to be 
initiated into the kingdom of the Messiah. . . . Whatever, therefore, 
the man Jesus either did or taught after his baptism, he did and 



CHRIST SUBORDINATE TO GOD. 441 

taught as the Messenger of God ; as an inspired man, under direct 

divine command and special divine assistance Prophet : This 

name was given to Christ, not merely because he was a teacher, but 
also because he was a messenger or ambassador of God, according to 
the original signification of the word. He performed all his works, 
suffering and dying, as well as teaching, as prophet, i. c, as the Mes- 
senger of God. — G. C. Knapp : Christ. Theology, sect. xcii. III. (2) 5 
sect. xciv. I. (2) ; and sect. cvii. II. (4). 






With the abatement of a few expressions naturally flowing from orthodox 
pens, the sentiments which we have just copied form an appropriate reply 
to the assertion not unfrequently made by Trinitarian controversialists, that 
Jesus delivered his instructions in his own name, without appealing to any 
authority but his own, and performed his miracles by his own underived 
and inherent power. We will not deny that our Lord taught with an au- 
thority far beyond that of any of the Jewish prophets, Greek philosophers, 
or oriental sages; but, with the Gospels in our hands, we do emphatically 
affirm, that the humble and holy being whose meat and drink it was to do 
the will of the Father, who passed whole nights in prayer to God, who spoke 
divine words because he had received without measure the spirit of wisdom 
and understanding, and did divine deeds because his God and Father was 
with him and in him, never on any occasion meant to claim equality with 
the Source of all intelligence and might, — never once implied that he was 
himself the Possessor of absolute and original perfection. But he was one 
with Him who was greater than himself; for, as an obedient Son, he wholly 
conformed to the rectitude of his Father's will. He could address the 
multitude, "I say unto you;" the leper, "I will, be thou clean;" and 
the paralytic, " Thy sins are forgiven thee:" for, as the Christ of God, 
as the approved and beloved of the Father, as the great Ambassador of 
Heaven, the Representative and Image of the Divine Majesty, he had the 
privilege of uttering his message to man in those tones of regal power and 
clemency which befitted his pure character and his sublime offices. He 
could say to the storm on the Lake of Galilee, " Peace, be still; " for on him 
the Lord of heaven and earth had conferred even a higher power than that 
of controlling the laws of nature, — the power of reigning over the minds 
and hearts of men, and of lulling to rest the tumults of human passion. He 
could declare to the anxious Martha, " I am the resurrection and the life;" 
for the infinite Father had made his Son the source of moral and spiritual 
Pie, — the announcer and the exemplifier of the soul's immortality. And 
he could tell the lifeless Lazarus to " come forth" from the tomb; for he 
had the full assurance that the Almighty Being whom he had just addressed 
in prayer heard approvingly his benevolent request, as He always had heard 
the petitions of his Son and Messenger. 

See " Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations of UnitarianisnV 
part i. chap. 2, sect. 1, (8); and part ii. chap. 2, sect. 7, (4) and (5). 



442 IN HIS OFFICES AND QUALIFICATIONS, 

§ 2. Christ as Lord while on Earth. 

One who reads the Bible with reflection . . . is astonished to find, 
that, on the very first appearance of Jesus Christ as a teacher, though 
attended with no exterior marks of splendor and majesty ; though not 
acknowledged by the great and learned of the age j though meanly 
habited, in a garb not superior to that of an ordinary artificer, in which 
capacity we have ground to believe he assisted (Mark vi. 3) his sup- 
posed father in his earlier days, — he is addressed by almost everybody 
in the peculiar manner in which the Almighty is addressed in prayer. 
Thus the leper, " Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," Matt, 
viii. 2. Thus the centurion, " Lord, my servant lieth at home," ver. 6. 
The Canaanitish woman crieth after him, "Have mercy on me, O 
Lord ! " chap. xv. 22. He is likewise mentioned sometimes under 
the simple appellation of " the Lord " (John xx. 2), without any addi- 
tion ; a form of expression which, in the Old Testament, our translators 
. . . had invariably appropriated to God. What is the meaning of 
this? Is it that, from his first showing himself in public, all men 
believed him to be the Messiah ; and not only so, but to be possessed 
of a divine nature, and entitled to be accosted as God ? Far from it. 
The utmost that can with truth be affirmed of the multitude is, that 
they believed him to be a prophet. And even those who, in process 
of time, came to think him the Messiah, never formed a conception of 
any character as belonging to that title, superior to that of an earthly 
sovereign, or of any nature superior to the human. Nay, that the 
apostles themselves, before his resurrection, had no higher notion, it 
were easy to prove. What, then, is the reason of this strange pecu- 
liarity ? Does the original give any handle for it ? None in the least. 
For, though the title that is given to him is the same that is given to 
God, it is so far from being peculiarly so, as is the case with the English 
term so circumstanced, that it is the common compellation of civility, 
given not only to every stranger, but to almost every man of a decent 
appearance, by those whose station does not place them in an evident 
superiority. It is the title with which Mary Magdalene accosted one 
whom she supposed to be a gardener, John xx. 15. It is the title 
given by some Greek proselytes to the apostle Philip, probably a 
fisherman of Galilee, chap. xii. 21. It is the title with which Paul the 
tent-maker, and Silas his companion, were saluted by the jailer at 
Philippi, Acts xvi. 30. Lastly, it is the title with which Pontius 
Pilate, the Roman procurator, a pagan and idolater, is addressed by 



CHRIST SUBORDINATE TO GOD. 443 

the chief priests and Pharisees, Matt, xxvii. 63. . . . Further, it is the 
title which those gave to Jesus, who, at the time they gave it, knew 
nothing about him. In this manner the Samaritan woman at Jacob's 
well addressed him (John iv. 11), when she knew no more of him than 
that he was a Jew, which would not recommend him to her regard. 
Thus also he was addressed by the impotent man who lay near the 
po~l of Bethesda (chap. v. 7), who, as we learn from the sequel of the 
story, did not then know the person who conversed with him, and whc 
soon proved his benefactor. . . . Our interpreters have, in this particu- 
lar [in generally translating Kvptog " Lord," instead of " Sir," when 
applied to Jesus in the Gospels], followed neither the Hebrew idiom 
nor the English, but adapted a peculiarity, in regard to Jesus Christ, 
which represents most of his contemporaries as entertaining the same 
opinions concerning him which are now entertained among Christians. 
Now, nothing can be more manifest than that, in those days, the ideas 
of his apostles themselves were far inferior to what we entertain. — 
Geo. Campbell : The Four Gospels, Diss. vii. part i. sects. 13, 14. 

§ 3. Christ as Saviour or Redeemer. 

When we are acquainted by Christ for what end he came into the 
world, and suffered and died, and rose again, we may discover the wis- 
dom and goodness of God in it, in sending us such a Saviour, and in 
qualifying him in so excellent a manner for the work of our redemp- 
tion ; but we cannot safely draw any one conclusion from the person 
of Christ which his gospel hath not expressly taught, because we can 
know no more of the design of it than what is there revealed. — Dr. 
William Sherlock : Knowledge of Christ, chap. hi. sect. 3. 

It was because God the Father infinitely loved his Son, and de- 
lighted to put honor upon him, that he appointed him to be the 
Author of that glorious work of the salvation of men. — President 
Edwards : Sermon 3 ; in Works, vol. iii. p. 600. 

As the grace of Christ is the meritorious, so the love of the Father 
is the original, cause of all spiritual blessings. The former source is 
traced to another still beyond. The Father is represented in Scripture 
as originating the salvation of man, as giving and sending his Son : 
" God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son ; " " Here- 
in is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his 
Son to be the propitiation for our sins " [John iii. 16 ; 1 John iv. 10]. 
Jesus Christ always speaks of himself as sent by the Father. — Robert 
Hall : Notes of Sermons ; in Works, vol. iv. p. 568. 



444 IN HIS OFFICES AND QUALIFICATIONS, 

The Lord Jesus uniformly represented himself as performing all 
his acts for the instruction and salvation of men, in the most perfect 
subserviency to the will of his Father, and dependence upon him ; and 
this fact he stated in a variety of expression, and on different occasions, 
so as to manifest an anxiety to impress it deeply on his followers. — 
Dr. J. P. Smith : Scripture Testimony, vol. ii. p. 84. 

The whole work of our redemption is attributed to God as its 
ultimate Author, and God is called our Saviour, because he produced 
the man Jesus by immediate creation, placed him in an entirely 
peculiar union with the Godhead ; because God sent his Son ; because 
Christ did, and still does, every thing according to the will of God ; 
and because he was given us by God to be the Author of our 
salvation. — Store, & Flatt : Biblical Theology, b. iv. § 75. 

He through whom the Deity opens, as it were, afresh his inter- 
course with human nature, becomes necessarily the Redeemer, not 
from one special spiritual burden, pressing on one particular period, 
but from the burden which weighed down the whole human race, at 
all times and everywhere. — E. L. Magoon : Republican Christianity, 
p. 107. 

Many citations of a similar character might be here introduced; but 
they will more properly come under the texts which they serve to explain. 

§ 4. Christ as Mediator. 

The mediatorial exaltation of Jesus Christ is everywhere in the 
New Testament attributed to the Father ; as, for example, when it is 
said, after a description of his humiliation, "Wherefore God hath 
highly exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above ever) 
name," Phil. ii. 10. — Dr. J. P. Smith : Scripture Testimony to the 
Messiah, vol. ii. p. 84. 

There is the utmost care taken in Scripture, . . . that, in all that 
Jesus did, he should be represented as acting in concurrence with the 
Father of all, for the fulfilment of his decrees, and the manifestation 
of his glory. The Lord Jesus Christ, as Mediator and as conducting 
his mediatorial kingdom, is manifestly to be distinguished in Scripture 
from the Sovereign of the universe. As Mediator, he is inferior to 
the Sovereign of the universe. He is a servant (having taken on 
him the form or condition of a servant), engaged in a peculiar service, 
subordinate to the general government of the universe. In his person 
he was inferior to God ; for when the Word, who was " with God," 
and who " was God," " was made flesh," and was " found in fashion as 



CHRIST SUBORDINATE TO GOIi. 445 

a man," le descended to the condition of a created being. That one 
person, Jesus, the Mediator between God and man, who combined in 
his person the divine and human nature, was inferior to the invisible, 
eternal Deity, as unallied to any creature. He was a person formed, 
by the will and wisdom of God, for a particular end connected with 
his universal government : he had therefore a beginning, that is, there 
was no person uniting in himself the nature of God and man from 
eternity ; and the person so constituted was necessarily inferior to Him 
who in this sense created him. And the Lord Jesus, thus constituted, 
was inferior to the Father of all, not only as to his person, but as to 
his office. He was appointed, delegated, sent to the fulfilment of it. 
He was Mediator between God and man, but not an independent 
Mediator, nor a Mediator provided by man ; but a Mediator provided 
by the mercy and wisdom and power of God. — James Carlile : 
Jesus Christ the Great God our Saviour, pp. 317-18. 

Because Christ is thus sent by the Father with a commission what 
to do and teach, it follows, even without the direct scriptural state- 
ment of the fact, that he is subordinate to the Father ; since, without 
contradiction, he who sends is greater than he who is sent. The 
attempt to explain such declarations of our Lord as the following, 
u My Father is greater than I " (John xiv. 28), on the simple ground 
of his humanity, would be, in our apprehension, entirely unsatisfactory ; 
for his subordination to the Father, as the receiver to the giver, extends 
to those offices that are manifestly above the capacity of a finite nature. 
Of that subordination of the Son to the Father which runs through all 
the scriptural representations concerning him, we have no new expla- 
nation to give ; for we regard the old explanation, that of official 
investiture, as abundantly sufficient. The Son receives from the 
Father his mediatorial office in all its parts ; he acts under him and 
by his authority, and is thus less than the Father ; not merely as " the 
man Christ Jesus," but also as "God manifest in the flesh." But 
the question still remains, How can any but a Divine Being receive the 
office which the Father commits to the Son ? — Professor E. P. 
Barrows : Article 2, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for Octobei', 1854 ; 
vol. xi. pp. 700-1. 

By " a Divine Being," the writer evidently means God, or a being equal 
to God ; for he adopts not the Arian hypothesis. But would it not be more 
rational to ask, How could a being who is infinitely powerful, and all-perfect 
in himself, have committed to him by another person any authority or office 
whatever V 

38 



446 THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST, 



SECT. VII. — THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST, THAT OF A FINTrE 
AND DEPENDENT BEING. 



Jesus alone, of all the human race, by the strength and light imparted from above, 
was exempt from sin, and rendered superior to temptation. — Hokslet. 

Such was thy truth, and such thy zeal; 
Such deference to thy Father's will. 



Cold mountains and the midnight air 
Witnessed the fervor of thy prayer. 

Isaac Watts. 

§ 1. AS EXHIBITED IN HIS HABITUAL PlETY. 

Among the qualities by which Jesus is so peculiarly distinguished, 
there is none which more attracts our observation, and commands our 
applause, than a vigorous and fervent spirit of piety, an entire resigna- 
tion to the will of God, an implicit submission to his pleasure. Nor 
is there any principle which he inculcates more earnestly and more 
frequently upon his disciples than the necessity and propriety of having 
recourse to God in prayer, of absolute dependence upon him, of the 
most ardent love and filial awe toward him, of the most anxious and 
incessant endeavor to obey his will and to promote his glory. The 
Being whom he thus professed to honor, and whom he enjoined 
his followers to adore, was undoubtedly the Jehovah of Israel, 
the Source to which Moses referred his authority, the Founder of the 
civil and religious polity established among the Jews. — Bishop 
Maltby : Illustrations of the Truth of the Christian Religion, 
chap. vi. p. 260. 

It is apparent, from multiplied expressions of Jesus and from all 
his acts, that the will of his Father, which he was entirely certain that 
he perfectly understood, was the only rule and the living power of his 
conduct. To God, as the Source of his spiritual life, was his soul ever 
turned ; and this direction of his mind was a matter of indispensable 
necessity to him. It was his meat and his drink to do the will of his 
Father. Without uniting himself to God wholly, consecrating himself 
to God unreservedly, feeling himself to be perfectly one with God, he 
could not have lived ; he could not have been at peace in his spirit a 

single instant In every thing which he said and did, he pointed 

to the Fountain of truth and goodness ; to the Father, who permitted 



THAT OF A FINITE AND DEPENDENT BEING. 447 

£he Son to have in himself, and to exhibit to man, a heavenly life that 
was pure, perfect, and self-sufficient. — Charles Ullmann : Sinless 
Character of Jesns, sects, iv. and viii. ; in Selections of German 
Literature, pp. 407, 444. 

The piety of Christ was uniform and complete. His supreme love 
to God was divinely manifested in the cheerfulness with which he 
Undertook the most arduous, and at the same time the most benev> 
lent, of all employments ; and, of course, that which was most pleasing 
to him, and most honorable to his name. His faith was equally 
conspicuous in the unshaken constancy with which he encountered the 
innumerable difficulties in his progress ; his patience, in the quietness 
of spirit with which he bore every affliction ; and his submission, in his 
ready acquiescence in his Father's will, while requiring him to pass 
through the deepest humiliation, pain, and sorrow. However hum- 
bling, however distressing, his allotments were, even in his agony in 
the garden and in the succeeding agonies of the cross, he never 
uttered a complaint. But, though afflicted beyond example, he exhi- 
bited a more perfect submission than is manifested by the most pious 
men under small and ordinary trials. No inhabitant of this world 
ever showed such an entire reverence for God, on any occasion, as he 
discovered on all occasions. He gave his Father, at all times, the 
glory of his mission, his doctrines, and his miracles ; seized every 
proper opportunity to set forth, in terms pre-eminently pure and sub- 
lime, the excellence of the divine character ; and spoke uniformly in 
the most reverential manner of the word, the law, and the ordinances, 
of God. At the same time, he was constant and fervent in the wor- 
ship of God. — Dr. Timothy D wight: Sermon 51; in Theology 
Explained, vol. ii. pp. 155-6. 

That Christ was properly a human person will appear, if we con- 
sider the state and circumstances in which he was placed while he 
lived in this world. For, 1. He was fixed in a state of dependence. 
This he repeatedly and plainly acknowledged. " Then Jesus answered 
and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do 
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do." Again he said, 
" When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I 
am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but, as my Father hath 
taught me, I speak these things." And again, " The words I speak 
unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, 
he doeth the works." These are plain expressions of Ins dependence 
upon his Father. And it was upon this ground that he so frequently 



448 THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST, 

and devoutly prayed to his Father. Prayer always implies dependence 
upon him to whom it is addressed. The prayers of Christ, therefore, 
prove that he lived and moved and had his being in God as really as 
other men, and was as much dependent upon him for divine assistance, 
direction, and preservation, through the whole course of his life, as 
any other of the human race. He prayed for divine direction in the 
choice of his twelve disciples. He prayed for divine assistance to 
raise Lazarus from the grave. He prayed for Peter, and for all his 
apostles and followers, at the last passover he ever attended. And he 
prayed to be divinely strengthened and supported through all his 
agonies in the garden and his sufferings on the cross. His continual 
prayers were a continual and practical expression of his state of de- 
pendence during his continuance on earth ; and his dependence was 
a demonstration of his real humanity. — Dr. Nathanael Emmons : 
Works, vol. iv. pp. 597-8. 

The principal passages to which Dn Emmons refers are John v. 19; viii. 
28 ; xiv. 10. Luke vi. 12. John xi. 41, 42. Luke xxii. 32. John xvii. Matt. 
xxvi. 36-44 ; xxvii. 46. Mark xiv. 32-39 ; xv. 34. Luke xxii. 41-45 ; xxiii. 
84, 46. 

He [Jesus] always withdrew at once from the crowd when his work 
was done. He sought solitude, he shrunk from observation ; in fact, 
almost the only enjoyment which he seemed really to love was his 
lonely ramble at midnight for rest and prayer. He spent whole nights 
thus, we are told. And it is not surprising, that, after the heated 
crowds and exhausting labors of the day, he should love to retire to 
silence and seclusion, to enjoy the cool and balmy air, the refreshing 
stillness, and all the beauties and glories of midnight, among the 
solitudes of the Galilean hills ; to find there happy communion with 
his Father, and to gather fresh strength for the labors and trials that 
yet remained. — Jacob Abbott: The Corner-stone, p. 61- 

Not less indicative of his [Christ's] humanity was his perfect 
dependence. He was dependent on his parents, and indebted to their 
watchfulness and love, and labors and bounty. He was dependent on 
divine providence, and looked to its daily supplies. He was a man of 
prayer ; and this alone is proof that he was sensible of his dependence 
on God. He made the frank avowal, " I can do nothing of myself." 
So absolute was his dependence that he could promise himself nothing 
but what his heavenly Father chose to give him from day to day. 

In the character of Christ, the love of God was ever supreme 

and ever constant. He could not love God more fervently or more 



THAT OF A FINITE AND DEPENDENT BEING. 449 

constantly than he did. His intellectual and active powers had their 
limits ; but to the full extent of them he loved. He had no other, 
he knew no other, God. There was not an idol in his heart, nor an 
idolatrous thought or desire. When we read his biography, the 
delightful impression everywhere comes upon us, that he enjoyed a 
constant sense of God's presence. God was in all his thoughts ; nor 
did such a sin ever lurk in his bosom as forgetfulness of his Father in 
heaven. His affections toward him were affections of love in all its 
sw r eet combinations of esteem, attachment, gratitude, and joy, and so 
cheerfully indulged that communion with him was his great solace and 
comfort, and the hiding of his face was the bitterest ingredient ever 
mingled in his cup. He had but one heart, and that heart was God's, — 
a whole heart, a pure heart, a heart never debased by an unworthy 
thought ; a throne that was never usurped by a rival deity ; a marble 
tablet, pure and burnished from its native quarry, on which was never 
engraven any tale of shame, and where suspicion never threw its 
doubtful shadow. . . . None so much as he ever delighted themselves 
in the diligent study of the divine nature and glory, or so much 
enjoyed the divine love. His affections toward God were eminently 
filial. He was the only-begotten Son, who u lay in the bosom of the 
Father : " the everlasting arms were his refuge and his home. His 
first and best thoughts, his first and warmest affections, his most 
delighted admiration, his most peaceful confidence and profound reve- 
rence, were attracted toward his Father which is in heaven 

His peculiar character is most emphatically written in the words, " He 
went about doing good." It was an art he had studied well, and it 
was the care and business of every day. He aimed to be harmless ; 
but he had higher aims. The infinite God was his example : he was 
perfect as his Father in heaven was perfect. Wherever he went, he 
wrapped himself in the mantle of that love, the very fold and hem of 
which were a refuge for the wants and woes of men. ... So intent, so 
dominant, was his purpose, that he made the first and the last end 

of his existence to labor for God and man His life was one 

of peculiar intercourse and near communion with God. Many a 
time did he rise up a great while before day, and retire to some 
selected mountain, or sequestered brook or grove, there to enj;y 
solitary intercourse with his Father in heaven. Whole nights he 
often employed in prayer. Forty days of fasting and prayer were 
his preparations for his public ministry. He loved to be alone with 
God. No employment, no society, no trials, ever prevented his inter* 

38* 



450 • THE MORAL CHARACTER OP CHRIST, 

course with God and heaven. He and his Father were one, if foi 
nothing but the uninterrupted fellowship which existed between them. 
Things unseen and eternal were the things he looked at. He often 
spoke of them, and of the beauty and riches and glory of them, and 
of heavenly thrones and heavenly joys. With intense interest and 
delight he spoke of them, and with pensive thoughts that they were 
at a distance, and with sweet anticipations that in a little while he 

should go * to the Father There never was any reason why 

men should not be as holy as Christ, either in the nature of holiness, 
or their own nature ; either in the binding force of the moral law, or 
the precepts, prohibitions, and spirit of the gospel. There is a cause 
for the imperfection of Christians, but there is no reason for it. The 
cause is their own sinful nature and love of wickedness. — Dr. 
Gardiner Spring: Glory of Christ, vol. i. pp. 81-2, 105-7, 114-15, 
125, 129. 

§ 2. AS EXHIBITED AMID TEMPTATIONS. 

How are we to understand his [Christ's] first sufferings immediately 
after his baptism ? It would be forcing common sense itself to suppose 
it not a real man, but a personage of a much more exalted nature, that 
was afflicted with the sensation of extreme hunger, that he might be 
induced to abuse and misapply the divine power of which he found 
himself possessed. As unnatural is it to suppose, that all the glory of 
this terrestrial globe was presented as a temptation to one who was 
of a nature so far surpassing not only that of men, but of angels and 
all created beings whatever. The prospect, how dazzling soever to 
human sense, could not possibly be a trial to such a being. ... It is in 
respect of his human nature that our Saviour is set before us as a 
pattern for our imitation. His whole deportment through life wit- 
nessed a strong sense of duty to his Father, and an unremitted exercise 
of benevolent affections towards the human race. And as he lived, so 
are we exhorted to live ; for in piety and true goodness we are capable 
of imitating him. Nor are we called upon to do more than it is "wr 
duty to do, more than human nature is capable of, more than what we 
know he as man did, when we are exhorted to live as he lived, " doing 
justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God." But conceive 
him, with regard to his behavior under those circumstances which to 
us are trials of integrity, to have had a nature different from and far 
euperior to ours, and you can no longer consider him as exemplifying 
our duty by his own conduct, or derive from it encouragement to hope 



THAT OF A FINITE AND DEPENDENT BEING. 451 

for success in the like temptations assaulting our weaker nature. We 
may, on this supposition, admire and adore his vastly superior excel- 
lence; but we shall be ever discouraged in the pursuit of virtue, 
through difficulties that are looked upon to require more than human 
nature to struggle under with any hope of success. — Dr. Benjamin 
Dawson: Illustration of Texts, pp. 179-81. 

These remarks, though levelled at the high Arian views of our Lcrd, 
seem to have still greater force if applied to the Trinitarian doctrine of 
Christ's person. 

The most important passages which treat of the sinlessness of 
Jesus are 2 Cor. v. 21; 1 John iii. 3, 5; Heb. iv. 15; 1 Pet. i. 19. 

The texts also in which it is said that he was obedient to the will and 
command of God belong in this connection ; as Heb. v. 8, and many 
passages in John. The virtue of Christ, in resisting steadfastly all the 
temptations to sin, acquires a real value and merit only on admission 
that he could have sinned. This opinion is, in fact, scriptural ; for we 
are frequently exhorted to imitate the example of Jesus, in his virtue, 
his conquest of sinful desires, &c. But how could this be done, if he 
had none of those inducements to sin which w T e have, and if it had 
been impossible for him to commit it ? Improvement in knowledge 
and in perfections of every kind is ascribed in Scripture to Christ; 
and Paul says that through sufferings he constantly improved in 
obedience, Heb. v. 8. We read expressly that Christ was tried, i. e., 
tempted to sin ; but that he overcame the temptation, Matt. iv. 1, seq. 
This temptation took place shortly before his entrance upon his public 
office, and tended to prepare him for it. It was intended to exercise 
and confirm him in virtue, and in obedience to God. But what object 
could there have been in this temptation, if it had been impossible for 
Jesus to yield to it ? and what merit would there have been in his 
resistance ? No difference is made in the thing itself, and in its con- 
sequences, by considering it, with Farmer and others, as a vision and 
parable, and not as a real occurrence. If it was impossible that Christ, 
as a man, should sin, it would be hard to find what the Bible means 
when it speaks of his being tempted, and commends him for over- 
coming temptation. — Abridged from George C. Knapp : Christian 
Theology, sect, xciii. HI. 

Had Jesus made use of miraculous power for the purpose of 
exempting himself from those sufferings which were laid upon him by 
his Father, this would have impaired the perfection of his obedience, 
and would have been a positive non-compliance with the appointment 



452 THE MORAL CHARACTER OP CHRIST, 

of his Father ; for you will observe that his situation in the remote 
wilderness, and the consequent hunger which his distance from the 
supplies of food brought upon him, was not a thing of his own doing. 
He was led by the Spirit into his present situation : there he was by 
the will of God. It was not for him to do any thing, but to wait the 
issue of God's counsel concerning him. The language for him was, 
" My Father brought me here, and will carry me in safety out 
again." — Abridged from Dr. Thomas Chalmers on Matt. iv. 4 ; in 
Select Works, vol. iii. p. 582. 

This is probably a fair representation of the feelings of the tempted and 
holy One of Nazareth; and, if it is, how can it be reconcilable with the doc- 
trine that he was not only a man, but Almighty God, the co-equal of the 
Father in power and glory? How unsuitable and unbecoming to say of 
the all-sufficient and infinite Jehovah that he was led into a particular situa- 
tion by the Spirit of God; that, by his acting a selfish part, he would have 
impaired the perfection of his obedience to the will of his Father; and that 
the appropriate language for such a being was, " My Father brought me 
here, and will carry me in safety out again " I The figment of a double 
nature — that of a divine and a human, in the last of which alone Jesus 
here acted — will not remove the difficulties inherent in the orthodox inter- 
pretation; for of what use could the omnipotent nature of Jesus have been 
to him as a man, if he felt it necessary to have recourse in his trials and 
temptations, not to his own infinite perfections, but to the providence or 
the power of his Father ? We are forced to employ words having an air of 
irreverence ; but the fault lies in the character of the dogma we oppose. 

He [our Saviour] was so entirely devoted to his Father's business, 
that half the readers of his life do not imagine that he had any of his 
own. But we must not forget that he was a man, with all the feel- 
ings, and exposed to all the temptations, of men. He might have 
formed the scheme of being a Napoleon, if he had chosen. The 
world was before him. He had the opportunity ; and, so far as we 
can understand the mysterious description of his temptation, he was 
urged to make the attempt. . . . Christians seem to think, that his 
bright example is only, to a very limited extent, an example for them. 
But we must remember that Jesus Christ was a man. His powers 
were human powers ; his feelings were human feelings ; and his 
example is strictly and exactly an example for all the world. — 
Jacob Abbott : The Cornerstone, pp. 49, 50. 

However interpreted, the moral purport of the [temptation] scene 
remains the same, — the intimation that the strongest and most lively 
impressions were made upon the mind of Jesus, to withdraw him 



THAT OF A FINITE AND DEPENDENT BEING. 453 

from the purely religious end of his being upon earth, to transform 
him from the author of a moral revolution to be slowly wrought by 
the introduction of new principles of virtue, and new rules for indi- 
vidual and social happiness, to the vulgar station of one of the great 
monarchs or conquerors of mankind; to degrade him from a being 
who was to offer to man the gift of eternal life, and elevate his nature 
to a previous fitness for that exalted destiny, to one whose influence 
over his own generation might have been more instantaneously mani- 
fest, but which could have been as little permanently beneficial as that 
of any other of those remarkable names which, especially in the East, 
have blazed for a time, and expired. — H. H. Milman : History of 
Christianity, vol. i. p. 156. 

The remarks from Abbott and from Milman might have proceeded 
from Unitarian pens ; for surely the writers must for a moment have for- 
gotten their orthodoxy, and felt persuaded that the great personage who 
resisted the temptations of worldly ambition was a being strictly human in 
his nature, and not the Highest of intelligences, to whom the universe itself, 
with all its glories, can offer nothing which he does not inherently possess. 
To us it is inconceivable, that, on the supposition of his having been, in one 
of his alleged natures, absolutely perfect, Jesus could ever have been the 
subject of trial and temptation; that his mind could ever have been in the 
slightest degree impressed with the dazzling, but unsubstantial, honors of 
an earthly Messiahship. 

Inward suggestions present the usual enticements to sin. This 
being the ordinary course of divine providence, the most natural inter- 
pretation [of the narrative of Christ's temptation in Matthew] is that 
which accords with it. Assuming, then, that the series of temptations 
was internal, though represented in the outward form of action, the 
subjective reality justifies the living external representation. A certain 
train of thought, embodying the current but incorrect views of the 
times, suggested itself to the spotless mind of Jesus, which he at once 
repelled without harboring. It is scarcely possible to realize the 
nature and severity of this trial, without having distinct ideas of 
the manhood of Jesus. He possessed all the natural feelings of the 
human heart. He was about to enter on public life. His contempo- 
raries associated certain ideas with Messiah. They expected that he 
would be clothed with extraordinary authority. They thought that 
he would be endued with supernatural powers. They looked for a 
temporal prince, wielding the powers with which he was invested for 
his own advantage, relieving his wants, protecting himself from injury, 



454 THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST, 

gratifying his own desires, and exalting himself to the highest earthly 
dominion. These were the sentiments of the time, which constituted 
the chief elements of the suggestions presented to the mind of Jesus. 
The ideas were artfully chosen, and were directed in some inexplicable 
way by the powers of darkness against the sinless soul of the Redeemer, 
They formed the most powerful assault that could have been made 
upon him, at the very crisis of his history, when he was about to 
appear in his public character, and found himself in a position which 
opened up prospects of the greatest magnificence, — the mysterious 
possession of the divine nature. The time and place are real, and 
literally correct. Jesus was in the wilderness, preparing himself by 
inward meditation for the great work of his public ministry. — Dr. 
S. Davidson : Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. p. 98. 

The impressiveness and value of the representation here given of the 
temptations of Jesus seem to us to depend altogether on the conception, 
that he did not possess any other than a finite soul, capable of being turned 
aside from the path of duty. 

§ 3. AS EXHIBITED IN HIS LAST SUFFERINGS. 

We find our Lord resorting to prayer in his last extremity, and 
with an earnestness, I had almost said a vehemence, of devotion 
proportioned to the occasion. . . . Throughout the whole scene, the 
constant conclusion of his prayer was, "Not my will, but thine, be 
done." . . . Prayer, with our blessed Lord himself, was a refuge from 
the storm. Almost every word he uttered, during that tremendous 
scene, was prayer ; — prayer the most earnest, the most urgent ; re- 
peated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of his soul ; private, 
solitary : prayer for deliverance ; prayer for strength ; above every 
thing, prayer for resignation. — Dr. William Paley : Sermons on 
Several Subjects, No. VIII. 

The whole scene of his [Christ's] approaching trial, his inevitable 
death, is present to his mind; and for an instant he prays to the 
Almighty Father to release him from the task, which, however of 
such importance to the welfare of mankind, is to be accomplished 
by such fearful means. The next instant, however, the momentary 
weakness is subdued j and, though the agony is so severe that the 
sweat falls like large drops of blood to the ground, [he] resigns 
himself at once to the will of God/ — H. H. Milman: History of 
Christianity, vol i. p. 332. 



THAT OF A FINITE AND DEPENDENT BEING. 455 

He [Jesus Christ] looked forward to the accumulation of sufferings 
which he knew would attend his last hours, with feelings on the rack 
of agony, with a heart " exceedingly sorrowful even unto death ; " but 
with a meek and resigned resolution, a tender and trembling constancy, 
unspeakably superior in moral grandeur to the stern bravery of the 
proudest hero. " I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am 
I held in anguish till it be accomplished ! Now is my soul distressed, 
and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour ! But for this 
cause came I to this hour. Father, glorify thy name ! " Luke xii. 50 ; 
John xii. 27. Through his whole life he was devoted to prayer ; and, 
when his awful hour was come, " he was in an agony, and prayed more 
earnestly, and his sweat was as drops of blood falling upon the ground," 
Luke xxii. 44. He was " sorrowful, and overwhelmed with anguish, 
and distressed to the utmost," Matt. xxvi. 37 ; Mark xiv. 33. " He 
fell upon his face, and prayed, and said, My Father, if it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me ! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou 
wiliest," Matt. xxvi. 39. In his last hours, with a bitterness of soul 
more excruciating than any bodily sufferings, he felt as if deserted by 
his God and Father; while yet he promised heaven to a penitent 
fellow-sufferer, and died in an act of devotional confidence, triumphing 
that his work was finished. Thus he died : but he rose again, that he 
might be Lord of both the dead and the living ; and he ascended to 
his Father and our Father, his God and our God. This was "the 
man Christ Jesus; a man demonstrated from God by miracles and 
prodigies and signs which God did by him, — a man ordained by God 
to be the Judge of the living and the dead," 1 Tim. ii. 5 ; Acts ii. 22, 
xvii. 31, xiii. 38. It is delightful to dwell on the character of this 
unrivalled man ; not only because in no other, since the foundation of 
the world, has the intellectual and moral perfection of our nature been 
exhibited, but because the contemplation of such excellence refreshes 
and elevates the mind, and encourages to the beneficial effort of imita- 
tion It was as a man that he suffered ; and as a man he felt 

his sufferings, and prayed for their alleviation, or for deliverance from 
them. " Save me from this hour ! If it be possible, let this cup pass 
from me ! " The desire of relief sprang from the very necessity of 
human feelings, — feelings which proved him to be not an enthusiast, 
nor a deranged person ; and the prayer for relief implied that limita- 
tion of knowledge which is inseparable from the condition of a created 
nature, and which belonged necessarily to the man Christ Jesus. Yet 
that this natural desire of deliverance from unutterable pain made no 



456 THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST, 

infringement on the perfection of his creature-holiness is manifest 
from its being combined with the most absolute deference to the will 
of God. — Dr. J. P. Smith : Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, 
vol. ii. pp. 96-7, 110. 

In the arid deserts of so-called orthodoxy, sentiments such as these are 
beautiful and refreshing, but in our opinion diametrically opposed to the 
notion that the meek and holy being, who, amidst the severity of his suffer- 
ings, leaned on the arm of Omnipotence for support, was himself omnipotent 
and impassible. 

In prayer and retirement, Christ had prepared himself for the 
beginning of his public ministry : in prayer and retirement, he now 
prepared to close his calling on earth. As then, so now, before enter- 
ing upon the outward conflict, he passed through it in the inward 
struggles of his soul. Then he had in spirit gained the victory, before 
he appeared openly among men a conqueror : now the conquest of 
suffering was achieved within, before the final, outward triumph. 
Arrived at the garden, he took apart Peter, James, and John, his 
three best-loved disciples, to be the honored witnesses of his prayer, 
and to pray with him. From the nature of the case, we could not 
have so full an account of this as of his prayer for his disciples, John 
xvii. In tne pains of suffering that are pressing upon him, he prays, 
" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." But this feel- 
ing could not for a moment shake his submission to the divine will. 
All other feelings are absorbed in the fundamental longing, " Thy 
will be done." The Divinity is distinguished from the Humanity; 
and, by this distinction, their unity, in the subordination of the one to 
the other, was to be made prominent. As a man, he might wish 
to be spared the sufferings that awaited him, even though from a 
higher point of view he saw their necessity ; just as a Christian may 
be convinced that he ought to make a certain sacrifice in the service 
of God, and yet, in darker moments, his purely human feelings may 
rise against it, until his conviction, and his will guided by his convic- 
tion, at last prevail. It was not merely that Christ's physical nature 
had to struggle with death, and such a death ; but his soul had to be 
moved to its depths by sympathy with the sufferings of mankind on 
account of sin. Thus the wish might arise within him, as a man, to 
be spared that bitter cup ; only on condition, however, that the will 
of God could be done in some other way. But the conviction that 
tins could not be, immediately followed. — Augustus Neander: 
of Jesus Christ, pp. 407-8. 






I'HAT OF A FINITE AND DEPENDENT BEING. 457 

The extracts we have made in this section, as to the profound piety of 
Jesus and his constant obedience to the divine will, seem, with but few 
exceptions, to be quite in uuison with the simple and interesting narratives 
of the New Testament. They represent the character of our Lord, not as 
that of a person absolutely perfect, the primary Possessor and the infinite 
Source of all excellence, but as the best of God's children, the highest model 
of human virtue, the rarest, the only type of a future and a godlike humanity. 
They speak of him as drawing all his moral and spiritual life from a greater 
Being than himself, — from the bosom of the supreme and universal Father; 
as referring all his possessions, his instructions, and his works, not to him- 
self, the original and uncontrolled Proprietor, Teacher, and Agent, — an 
infinite and eternal hypostasis in a Triune Deity, which became united to a 
finite and mortal nature, — but to the power, the wisdom, and the goodness 
of his Father and his God. They exhibit him neither as the blessed and 
only Potentate, nor as one of three Almighty Persons, who left the throne 
of his co-equals to dwell in a world, and live with and on behalf of men, the 
products of his own creative skill ; and who, conscious of powers belonging 
only to an absolute and independent Being, never bent his knee, or pros- 
trated his soul, before any God in heaven or on earth; but as a man, who, 
bearing a relation to the Supreme and Paternal Spirit higher and more inti- 
mate than that vouchsafed to any other holy personage or divine messenger, 
consecrated himself — all that he had and said and did — to the service and 
glory of God ; devoting the affections of his childhood, the growing strength 
of his youth, the maturity of his powers, the excellence of his gifts, the 
inspirations of his Heaven-taught mind, and the throbbings of his human 
heart, — all his thoughts and words and works, his trials and his sufferings, 
his life and his death, — to the worship and praise, not of three co-equal and 
co-eternal persons, of whom he was the second, but of the One Eternal, Im- 
mortal, and Invisible, the true and the only God, who sent him into the world 
to be the Teacher, the Exemplar, and the Saviour of the human race. 

Some Trinitarians speak of the sinlessness of Jesus as a proof that he 
ivas truly and essentially divine. We, on the contrary, regard it as affording 
the strongest evidence for his unqualified subordination to God, and are 
confirmed in our opinion by the mode in which it is presented by the ortho- 
dox writers whom we have quoted. It seems, indeed, amazing that any 
one can read with care the records of the evangelists, or the discourses and 
letters of the apostles, and at the same time believe that the moral perfec- 
tions of their Master, which they represent as transcendent only because 
he was a more faithful follower of God than others., and was more obedient 
and resigned to his will, were the perfections of the ever-blessed and abso- 
lute Being. The argument, as Dr. Pond (in his Review of Bushnell's 
u God in Christ," p. 17) well observes, " is obviously defective. An incarnate 
angel might be sinless ; nor is there any thing impossible in the supposition 
of a perfectly sinless man; " for " man once was sinless," and " ought to be 
sinless now." 

See p. 411 for Dr. Bloomfield's note on Matt. xix. 17. 

39 



458 CHRIST THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD, 



SECT. VIII. — CHRIST NOT GOD, BUT THE REPRESENTATIVE, THE 
MANIFESTATION, THE MORAL IMAGE, OF GOD, 

Thou, Lord, by mortal eyes unseen, 
And by thine offspring here unknown, 
To manifest thyself to men, 
Hast set thine image in thy Son. 

Mason. 

"Whatever of the falsely or the superstitiously fearful imagination 
conjures up, because of God being at a distance, can only be dispelled 
by God brought nigh unto us. The spiritual must become sensible : 
the veil which hides the unseen God from the eye of mortals must 
be somehow withdrawn. Now, all this has been done once, and done 
only, in the incarnation of Jesus Christ ; he being the brightness of 
his Father's glory, and the express image of his person. The God- 
head became palpable to human senses ; and man could behold, as in 
a picture or in distinct personification, the very characteristics of the 
Being who made him. Then truly did men hold converse with 
Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us. They saw his 
glory in the face of Jesus Christ ; and the very characteristics of the 
Divinity himself may be said to have appeared in authentic represen- 
tation before them, when God manifest in the flesh descended on 
Judea, and sojourned among its earthly tabernacles. By this mys- 
terious movement from heaven to earth, the dark, the untrodden 
interval, which separates the corporeal from the spiritual, was at 
length overcome. The King eternal and invisible was then placed 
within the ken of mortals. They saw the Son, and in him saw the 
Father also ; so that, while contemplating the person and the history 
of a man, they could make a study of the Godhead. ... In no way 
tfould a more palpable exhibition have been made, than when the 
eternal Son, shrined in humanity, stepped forth on the platform of 
visible things, and on the proclaimed errand to seek and to save us. 
We can now read the character of God in the human looks and in 
the human language of him who is the very image and visible repre- 
sentation of the Deity. We see it in the tears of sympathy which he 
shed. We hear it in the accents of tenderness which fell from him. 
Even his very remonstrances were those of a meek and gentle nature; 
for they are remonstrances of deepest pathos, the complaints of a 
longing and affectionate spirit, against the sad perversity of men bent 



THE MORAL IMAGE OF THE FATHER. 459 

on their own undoing. When visited with the fear that God looks 
hardly and adversely towards us, let us think of him who had com- 
passion on the famishing multitudes ; of him who mourned with the 
sisters of Lazarus; of him who, when he approached the city of 
Jerusalem, wept over it at the thought of its coming desolation. 
And, knowing that the Son is like unto the Father, let us re-assure 
our hopes with the certainty that God is love. — Dr. T. Chalmers : 
Select Works, vol. iii. pp. 161-2. 

If we do not misunderstand the import of this extract, Dr. Chalmers, 
though he uses some expressions which are of an unscriptural character, 
means to affrm that Jesus was the image of the Father, and the manifesta 
tion of God in the flesh, not because he was or represented God the Son 
(who, according to this divine, was the Jehovah who appeared visibly to 
the patriarchs and others), but because he imaged forth the moral character 
of the Deity, of the Invisible One, the Father, who became visible in the 
person, the offices, and the life of the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus. 
Such a sentiment is surely more in unison with the teachings of the New 
Testament than with the dicta of human creeds or the dogmas of a meta- 
physical orthodoxy. 

Let us observe again, and be thankful for, the perfect wisdom of 
God. Even while presenting to us God in Christ, that is to say, God 
with all those attributes which we can understand and fear and love ; 
and without those which throw us, as it were, to an infinite distance, 
overwhelming our minds and baffling all our conceptions, — even 
then the utmost care is taken to make us remember that God in 
himself is really that infinite and incomprehensible Being to whom 
we cannot, in our present state, approach ; that even his manifestation 
of himself in Christ Jesus is one less perfect than we shall be permitted 
to see hereafter; that Christ stands at the right hand of the Majesty 
on high ; that he has received from the Father all his kingdom and 
his glory ; finally, that the Father is greater than he, inasmuch as any 
other nature added to the pure and perfect essence of God must, in a 
certain measure, if I may venture so to speak, be a coming down to 
a lower point from the very and unmixed Divinity. ... It was very 
necessary, especially at a time when men were so accustomed to 
worship their highest gods under the form of men, that, whilst the 
gospel was itself holding out the man Christ Jesus as the object of 
religious faith and fear and love, and teaching that all power was 
given to him in heaven and in earth, it should also guard us against 
supposing that it meant to represent God as, in himself, wearing a 
human form, or having a nature partaking of our infirmities j and 



460 CHRIST THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD, 

therefore it always speaks of there being something in God higher 
and more perfect than could possibly be revealed to man; and for 
this eternal and infinite and inconceivable Being it claims the reserve 
of our highest thoughts, or rather it commands us to believe that 
they who shall hereafter see God face to face shall be allowed to sep 
something still greater than is now revealed to us, even in Him who 
is the express image of God, and the brightness of his glory. — Dr. 
Thomas Arnold : Sermons on the Christian IAfe, pp. 238-40. 

Whatever opinion may be entertained of some of the views presented in 
this extract, we think it unquestionable that the eternal and infinite Being 
who was pleased to manifest himself to the world in and through Christ, 
and who was the Source of all the kingdom, power, and glory, of which 
Christ was and is in possession, is greater than the recipient of his bounty; 
and that, however worthy his holy Son, Messenger, Representative, and 
Image may be of receiving our reverential regards and heartfelt obedience, 
God claims for himself our highest thoughts and profoundest veneration 
This is the uniform lesson of the New Testament, and seems to be incul 
cated here by Dr. Arnold. 

No doubt, the benevolence of the Creator had awakened grateful 
feelings, and kindled the most exquisite poetry of expression, in the 
hearts and from the lips of many before the coming of Christ ; no 
doubt, general humanity had been impressed upon mankind in the 
most vivid and earnest language. But the gospel first placed these 
two great principles as the main pillars of the new moral structure ; 
God the universal Father, mankind one brotherhood; God made 
known through the mediation of his Son, the image and humanized 
type and exemplar of his goodness ; mankind of one kindred, and 
therefore of equal rank in the sight of the Creator, and to be united 
in one spiritual commonwealth. — Henry H. Mdlman : History of 
Christianity, vol. i. p. 207. 

Here Christ is beautifully and scripturally spoken of, not as God the 
Son, but as the Son of God, " the image and humanized type of God's good- 
ness; " one who, through his mediation, makes God known to mankind, not 
as a Triune Being, but as the universal Father. 

Almighty God has revealed himself as the proper object of religion, 
as the one only Power on whom we are to feel ourselves continually 
dependent for all things, and the one only Being whose favor we are 
continually to seek; and, lest we should complain that an infinite 
Being is an object too remote and incomprehensible for our minds to 
dwell upon, he has manifested himself in his Son, the man Jesus 



THE MORAL IMAGE OF THE FATHER. 461 

Christ, whose history and character are largely described to us in the 
Gospels j so that to love, fear, honor, and serve Jesus Christ, is to love, 
fear, honor, and serve Almighty God ; Jesus Christ being " one with 
the Father," and " all the fulness of the Godhead " dwelling in him. — 
Archbishop Whately: Cautions to the Times, p. 71. 

Whatever shade of meaning the Archbishop of Dublin may attach to the 
scriptural expressions with which this paragraph closes, the main sentiment 
he inculcates is unequivocally Unitarian; namely, that "the only Being 
whose favor we are continually to seek," the Infinite and Incomprehensible 
One, M manifested himself in his Son, the man Jesus Christ." This sentiment 
is, we think, in perfect unison with the teachings of the New Testament, and 
in total opposition to the notion, either that three infinite persons manifested 
themselves, or that the second of these infinite persons manifested himself 
in what is termed the human nature of our Lord. 

We accept the fact of the incarnation, because we feel that it is 
impossible to know the absolute and invisible God, as man needs to 

know him and craves to know him, without an incarnation 

You cannot believe the words [" We beheld his glory as of the only- 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," John i. 14], however 
habitual and familiar they may be to you, if there is that in them 
which contradicts the spirit of a man that is in you ; which does not 
address that with demonstration and power. What we say is, that 
these words have not contradicted that spirit, but have entered it 
with the demonstration of the spirit and of power. Men have declared, 
" The actual creatures of our race do tell us of something which must 
belong to us, must be most needful for us. A gentle human being 
does give us the hint of a higher gentleness : a brave man makes us 
think of a courage far greater than he can exhibit. Friendships, 
sadly and continually interrupted, suggest the belief of an unalterable 
friendship. Every brother awakens the hope of a love stronger than 
any affinity in nature, and disappoints it. Every father demands a 
love and reverence and obedience which we know is his due, and 
which something in him, as well as in us, hinders us from paying. 
Every man who suffers and dies, rather than He, bears witness of a 
truth beyond his life and death, of which he has a glimpse." Men 
have asked, " Are all these delusions ? Is this goodness we have 
dreamed of, all a dream ? — this truth a fiction of ours ? Is there no 
Brother, no Father, beneath those who have taught us to believe 
there must be such ? Who will tell us ? " — What St. John answers 
iis this : " No, they are not delusions. It has pleased the Father to 

39* 



462 CHRIST THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD, 

show us what he is. A man did dwell among us, — an actual man 
like ourselves, — who told us that he had come from this Father; 
that he knew him. And we believed him : we could not help be- 
lieving him. There did shine forth, in his words, looks, acts, that 
which we felt to be the grace and the truth we were wanting to see. 
We were sure they were not of this earth j that they did not spring 
from that body which was such as ours is. We should have been 
ready enough to call them his. But he did not : he said they were 
his Father's ; that he could do nothing of himself, only what he saw 
his Father do [John v. 19]. That was the most wonderful token to 
us of all. We never saw any man before who took nothing to him- 
self, who would glorify himself in nothing. Therefore, when we 
beheld him, we felt that he was a Son, an only-begotten Son j and 
that the glory of One whom no man had seen, or could see, was 
shining forth in him, and through him upon us." — F. D. MAURICE : 
Theological Essays, No. VI. pp. 79, 81-2. 

This passage may not be consistent with the other portions of the Essay 
from which it is taken; but we regard it as containing a beautiful sum- 
mary of what John in his Gospel has recorded of his divine Master. It 
is not improbable that Unitarians may have felt too great a dislike to the 
word " incarnation," on account of the gross ideas which it has been so 
often made to express; but the term is not the less fitted to convey the 
truly scriptural doctrine, that the Absolute, the Infinite, the Invisible One, 
the Maker of the universe, and the Parent of all intelligences, has exhibited 
himself to mankind in a clearer and more affectionate manner by his well- 
beloved Son, than by any other teacher or agent, whether animate or 
inanimate, physical, intellectual, or moral ; and that his union with Jesus, 
the Nazarean Man, was more real, intimate, transcendent, than any which 
has ever subsisted between the same Father and the best and greatest of his 
human children. But this doctrine is, we think, very different from that 
which regards Jesus as a second hypostasis in the Godhead, or as God him- 
self, assuming human flesh, in order either to manifest his own divine nature, 
or to exhibit the character and will of a Triune Being; or as a single person 
uniting in himself the contradictory properties of Divinity and Humanity. 

He [God] brings out the purity and spotlessness and moral glory 
of the Divinity, through the workings of a human mind called into 
existence for this purpose, and stationed in a most conspicuous attitude 
among men. . . . The moral perfections of Divinity show themselves 
to us in the only way by which, so far as we can see, it is possible 
directly to show them, by coming out in action, in the very field of 
human duty, by a mysterious union with a human intellect and human 
powers. It is God manifest in the flesh; the visible moral image 



THE MORAL IMAGE OF THE FATHER. 463 

of an all-pervading moral Deity, Himself for ever invisible 

God manifests himself in the blazing sun, the fiery comet, and in the 
verdure and bloom of the boundless regions of the earth ; but these 
are not the avenues through which a soul burdened with its sins would 
desire to approach its Maker. The gospel solves the difficulty. " It 
is by Jesus Christ that we have access to the Father." This vivid 
exhibition of his character, this personification of his moral attributes, 
opens to us the way. Here we see a manifestation of Divinity, an 
image of the invisible God, which comes as it were down to us : it 
meets our feeble faculties with a personification exactly adapted to 
their wants ; so that the soul — when pressed by the trials and diffi- 
culties of its condition, when overwhelmed with sorrow, or bowed 
down by remorse, or earnestly longing for holiness — will pass by all 
the other outward exhibitions of the Deity, and approach the invisible 
Supreme through that manifestation of himself which he has made 
in the person of Jesus Christ, his Son, our Saviour. — Jacob Abbott : 
The Corner-stone, pp. 25-6, 48. 

Here, again, Christ is spoken of, not as manifesting any essentially divine 
nature and attributes of his own, but rather the moral glory and perfections 
of the Deity; of the invisible Supreme; of that paternal Being to whom he 
stood in the relation of only-begotten or best-beloved Son. 

The reality of Christ is what he expresses of God, not what he ia 
in his physical conditions, or under his human limitations. He is here 
to express the absolute Being, especially His feeling, His love to man, 
His placableness, conversableness, and His real union to the race ; in 
a word, to communicate his own life to the race, and graft Himself 
historically into it. Therefore, when we see him thus under the con- 
ditions of increase, obedience, worship, suffering, we have nothing to do 
but to ask what is here expressed ; and, as long as we do that, we shall 
have no difficulty. — Horace Bushnell : God in Christ, p. 156. 

This passage occurs as an explanation of Dr. Bushxell's view of the 
person of Christ, in opposition to the common one that Christ had a human 
soul distinct from a divine nature. We introduce it here merely to illustrate 
our position, that Jesus Christ was not the Being whom he represented, any 
more than the external world is the Creator whose goodness and glory it 
manifests. 



All the texts of Scripture which speak of the indwelling of God in Christ, 
of Christ's union with God, of his acting as the representative, or his being 
the image, of God, will be explained more fully in their respective places 
in the sequel of the present work. 



464 AS HEAD AND RULER OF THE CHURCH, 



8ECT. IX. — AS HEAD OF THE CHURCH, AND AS JUDGE OF MANKIND, 
CHRIST DERIVED HIS POWER AND GLORY FROM GOD. 

To Jesus' new commands 
Be strict obedience paid : 
O'er all his Father's house he stands 
The Sovereign and the Head. 

Isaac Watts. 

There was some kind of lordship given or bestowed on Christ, 
whose very unction proves no less than an imparted dominion ; as St. 
Peter tells us that he was " made both Lord and Christ," Acts ii. 36. 
What David spake of man, the apostle hath applied peculiarly unto 
him : " Thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him 
over the works of thy hands j thou hast put all things in subjection 
under his feet," Heb. ii. 7, 8. Now, a dominion thus imparted, given, 
derived, or bestowed, cannot be that which belongeth unto God as 
God, founded in the divine nature, because whatsoever is such is 
absolute and independent. Wherefore, this lordship thus imparted 
or acquired appertaineth to the human nature, and belongeth to our 
Saviour as the Son of man. The right of judicature is part of this 
power ; and Christ himself hath told us that the Father " hath given 
him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man " 
(John v. 27) ; and, by virtue of this delegated authority, the " Son 
of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and 
reward every man according to his works," Matt. xvi. 27. Part of 
the same dominion is the power of forgiving sins ; as pardoning, no 
less than punishing, is a branch of the supreme magistracy; and 
Christ did therefore say to the sick of the palsy, " Thy sins be forgiven 
thee, that we might know that the Son of man had power on earth 
to forgive sins," Matt. ix. 2, 6. Another branch of that power is the 
alteration of the law, there being the same authority required to 
abrogate or alter, which is to make a law ; and Christ asserted himself 
to be " greater than the temple," showing that the " Son of man was 
Lord even of the sabbath-day," Matt. xii. 6, 8. This dominion thus 
given unto Christ in his human nature was a direct and plenary power 
over all things, but was not actually given him at once, but part while 
he lived on earth, part after his death, and resurrection. For though 
it be true that " Jesus knew," before his death, " that the Father had 






CHRIST DERIVED HIS POWER AND GLORY FROM GOD. 465 

given all things into his hands " (John xiii. 3), yet it is observable 
that in the same place it is written, that he likewise knew " that he 
was come from God, and went to God;" and part of that power 
he received when he came from God, with part he was invested 
when he went to God, — the first to enable him ; the second, not only 
so, but also to reward him. " For to this end Christ both died, rose, 
and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living," 
Rom. xiv. 9. After his resurrection, he said to his disciples, "All 
power is gi^en unto me in heaven and in earth," Matt, xxviii. 18, 
"He drank of the brook in the way; therefore he hath lift up his 
head, ' Ps. ex. 7. Because " he humbled himself, and became obe- 
dient unto death, even the death of the cross, therefore God hath 
also highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every 
name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in 
heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of 
God the Father," Phil. ii. 8-1 1. Thus for and after his death he was 
instated in a full power and dominion over all things, even as the Son 
of man ; but exalted by the Father, who " raised him from the dead, 
and set him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all 
principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that 
is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come ; 
and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head 
over all things to the church," Eph. i. 20-22. — Bishop Pearson : 
Exposition of the Creed, Art. II. pp. 216-17. 

God hath committed the administration of this judgment to Christ, 
that he might hereby declare the righteousness and equity of it, 
in that mankind is judged by one in their own nature, a man like 
themselves ; and therefore we find that the Scripture, when it speaks 
of Christ as Judge of the world, doth almost constantly call him 
"man" and "the Son of man," Matt. xiii. 41; xvi. 27; xxiv. 30; 
xxv. 31. Acts xvii. 31. By the constant use of which expression, the 
Scripture doth give us plainly to understand that this great honor of 
being Judge of the world was conferred upon the human nature 
of Christ ; for, as he is God, he could not derive this power from any, 
it being originally inherent in the Deity. Which likewise appears in 
those expressions of his being ordained a Judge, and having all 
authority and judgment committed and given to him, Acts xvii. 31; 
John v. 22. 27. — Abridged from Archbishop Tillotson : Sermon 
179 ; in Works, vol. ix. pp. 325-6. 



466 AS HEAD AND RULER OF THE CHURCH, 

In this place [Matt, xxviii. 18-20], you hear our Saviour declaring 
all power and authority to be given him at his resurrection ; in con- 
sequence of which power, he commissions his disciples to convert, 
baptize, and instruct the world. . . . You see, likewise, that the powers 
delegated to the ministers of the church derive themselves from this 
power so received ; and, consequently, all acts done by them in the 
name of Christ are founded in the power which he received at his 
resurrection. . . . The power over all things, the dominion both of the 
dead and the living [Rom. xiv. 9], commenced at the resurrection, 
which was indeed the very first step to glory and honor which our 
blessed Saviour took after his state of humiliation and sufferings. . . . 
What can be added to this description of power and authority? 
[Eph. i. 17-23.] And yet the apostle founds all this upon his resur- 
rection, and his exaltation consequent to it. Then were all things 
put under his feet ; then was he given to be Head over the church, 
and set above all principality and power and might and dominion, and 
every name that is named. The Scripture abounds in evidence of 
this kind. And I think there is nothing plainer in the Gospel than 
that Christ Jesus is our Lord, because he hath redeemed us ; that he 
is our King, being raised by the Father to all power and authority ; 
that he is our Mediator and Intercessor, being set down on the right 
hand of God in the heavenly places. All honor and worship paid to 
Christ, in and by the church of God, are founded in this exaltation. — 
Bishop Sherlock : Discourses, vol. iv. pp. 58-9, 62. 

Even in his human nature, he [Christ] was raised by God to a 
very illustrious dignity, John xvii. 5 ; Acts ii. 33-36 ; Eph. i. 20, seq. ; 
Col. i. 17 ; Phil. ii. 9, 10. He is entitled to honor from every being, 
even from the higher intelligences, Heb. i. 6 ; Phil. ii. 9, 10 ; since 
he is henceforth raised in glory and majesty above all, 1 Pet. iii. 22. 
Hence a kingdom is ascribed to him, over which he reigns in heaven. 
He is called King, and divinely appointed Lord, Acts ii. 36; and 
Kvpiog tiofyg, especially by Paul, 1 Cor. ii. 8, i.e. the glorious, adorable 
Lord. In Heb. i. 9, Paul applies to Christ the passage, Ps. xlv. 7, 
" God hath anointed thee with the oil of joy above thy fellows j " i. c, 
God honors thee more, and gives thee more privileges, than all the 
partners of thy dignity, — the other kings, or sons of God. . . . The 
government of Christ is described by himself and his apostles as being, 
not external and temporal, but spiritual, conducted principally by 
means of his religion, by the preaching of the gospel, and the power 
which attends it. This government, which Jesus administers as a 



CHRIST DERIYED HIS POWER AND GLORY FROM GOD. 467 

man, is not natural to him, or one which he attains by birth, but 
acquired. He received it from his Father as a reward for his suffer- 
ings, and for his faithful performance of the whole work and discharge 
of all the offices intrusted to him by God for the good of men, PhiL 
ii. 9 ; Heb. ii. 9, 10. Christ learned by his sufferings to obey God, 
and do his will ; and he who knows how to obey so well is also qua- 
lified to govern well The phrase [" sitting at the right hand 

of God } ] is never applied to Christ, except when his humanity is 
spoken of, or when he is mentioned as Messiah, tieavdpoTroc. The 
language, " Christ left his seat at the right hand of the Father in 
order to become man," was first used by the fathers who lived after 
the fourth century. Such language never occurs in the New Testa- 
ment. " Sitting at the right hand of God " is always there represented 
as the reward which the Messiah obtained from God, after his death 
and ascension, for the faithful accomplishment, when upon earth, of 
all his work for the salvation of man. It is the promised reward 
which the victor receives after a long contest: vide Acts ii. 31-36; 
Heb. xii. 2. Hence the Father is said to have placed Jesus at his 
right hand, Eph. i. 20. This phrase, therefore, beyond doubt, implies 
every thing which belongs to the glory of Christ considered as a man, 
and to the dominion over the entire universe, over the human race, and 
especially over the church and its members, which belongs to him as 

a king. This is the reward which he receives from the Father 

The holding of the general judgment, as well as the raising of the 
dead, is commonly ascribed in the New Testament to Christ, and 
represented as a commission or plenipotentiary power, which the 
Father had given to the man Jesus as Messiah, Horn. ii. 16 ,• John v. 
22, 25; Matt. xvi. 27; Acts x. 42, xvii. 31. Christ himself assigns 
it as the reason why God had intrusted to him the holding of this 
judgment, that he is a man, John v. 27, coll. Acts xvii. 31. God 
has constituted him the Judge of men, because he is man, and knows 
from his own experience all the sufferings and infirmities to which cur 
nature is exposed, and can therefore be compassionate and indulgent, 
Heb. ii. 14-17, coll. 1 Tim. ii. 5. — Abridged from Geo. C. Knapp : 
Christian Theology, sect, xcviii. ; sect. xcix. n. ; sect. civ. I. 

Of what nature is the KvpcorTjg so often ascribed to the Saviour by 
Paul, and the other writers of the New Testament ? Is it original or 
conferred ? Does Christ as Messiah, and, in this capacity, as Lord of 
the church and of all things, possess original or delegated dominion ? 
" God manifest in the flesh," the eternal Logos who " was with God, 



468 CHRIST AS HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 

and was God," — in a word, God-man, — this complex person might 
have a KvpioTqg that was delegated or conferred. \V as this in fact so ? 
Has Paul and his coadjutors taught us such doctrine ? These ques 
tions I feel myself obliged to answer in the affirmative. The apostle, 
in Phil. ii. 5-11, states it as a ground of Christ's exaltation to be Lord 
of all, that " he became obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross ; " for, when he had made mention of this obedience, he imme- 
diately adds, " wherefore," i.e., because he was thus obedient, he was 
exalted to a throne of glory. Consequently, the dominion in question 
was the reward of obedience ; i.e., it was conferred, bestowed, and not 
original. In exact accordance with this is the passage in Heb. ii. 10, 
which represents Christ as perfected in glory, advanced to the highest 
honor and happiness, as a consequence of his sufferings. Of the same 
tenor also are all those passages which speak of Jesus as exalted to 
the right hand of God, after his resurrection. So testifies also the 
beloved disciple: "Even as I (Christ) overcame, and am set down 
with my Father on his throne," Rev. hi. 21 ; i.e., his Kvpiorrjc, or being 
enthroned, was the consequence of his overcoming ; viz., overcoming the 
temptations and trials of life, overcoming his spiritual enemies, and 
persevering even to the end in a course of entire duty and holiness. 
Again, John xiii. 3 ; xvii. 2 ; hi. 35 ; v. 26, 27 ; v. 22. With this 
testimony agree the declarations of Jesus as recorded by another 
disciple : " All things are delivered unto me of my Father," Matt. 
xi. 27. "All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth," 
Matt, xxviii. 18. These are only a few of the many texts which 
speak plainly on the subject of the Messiah's conferred dominion. It 
is impossible to set them aside. Whatever dominion he possessed as 
Messiah, as God-man, as Mediator, as Head of the church militant, 
it is one which is bestowed. — Abridged from Moses Stuart, in 
Biblical Repository for October, 1831, pp. 749-51. 



\Vith the aid of Trinitarian divines, we showed, in preceding pages, that 
Jesus Christ, whether regarded as a superhuman being, who existed before 
his residence in the world, or as the Messiah with all the functions and 
qualifications requisite for his acting on earth in this character, received his 
existence, his possessions, and his powers, from his heavenly Father. In 
the present section, we have proved, with the same help, that our Lord, in 
that state of exaltation to which he was raised after the completion of his 
earthly course, was and is indebted to the- same great Being for his regal 
power and dominion, — for his authority as the Head and Sovereign of thf 
universal church. 



CHRIST THE OBJECT 01? CIVIL WORSHIP 469 



SECT. X. — CHRIST NOT TO BE WORSHIPPED WITH SUPREME VENE- 
RATION, BUT WITH THE HONOR DUE TO ONE WHO FAITHFULLY 
PERFORMED THE WILL OF GOD, AND DIED FOR THE SALVATION 
OF MEN. 

To Him who sits upon the throne, 

The God whom we adore, 
And to the Lamb that once was slain, 

Be glory evermore. 

Scotch Paraphrase. 

§ 1. Civil, not Divine, Homage paid to Jesus while on Earth. 

Should any one peruse the evangelical narratives with the requisite 
attention, he would hardly affirm that the persons who worshipped 
Christ while on earth acknowledged him to be the Son of God [in 
the Trinitarian sense, we suppose, is intended]. They believed, indeed, 
that he was a distinguished prophet, sent by the Almighty, by whose 
assistance he cured the blind, the deaf, and the lame; but they 
did not recognize him as the true Son of God. This is proved by 
the opinion of Nicodemus, John iii. 2 ; the confession of Peter and the 
other disciples, Matt. xvi. 13, 14 ; and the exclamation of the inha- 
bitants of Nain, Luke vii. 16. Accordingly, the magi, the leper, the 
centurion, and others, though as yet they did not acknowledge Christ 
to be the Son of God manifest in the flesh, felt persuaded that the 
power of the Most High was exhibited in him ; and therefore the wise 
men honored him as their King, and others sought aid and health 
from him as from a mighty Prophet of God. — Abraham Scultet : 
ExercitationeSf lib. i. cap. 59. 

I do not, in proof of this [that Christ is the object of divine wor- 
ship], urge the instances of those who fell down at Christ's feet and 
worshipped him while he was on earth ; for it may be well answered 
to that, that a prophet was worshipped with the civil respect of falling 
down before him, among the Jews, as appears in the history of Elijah 
and Elisha. Nor does it appear that those who worshipped Christ 
had any apprehension of his being God : they only considered him 
as the Messias, or as some eminent prophet. — Bishop Burnet : 
Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. I. 

The bishop, however, excepts from such instances those in which the 
disciples are said to have worshipped Christ at his ascension. 

40 



470 CHRIST NOT TO BE WORSHIPPED 

Doing reverence by prostration is not only an act of worship paid 
to God, but often to kings and great men in the Old Testament, ac- 
cording to the custom of Eastern countries : see 2 Sam. ix. 6 ; xiv. 33. 
It was likewise an expression of reverence paid to prophets, on the 
account of the sanctity of their office, and not refused by them : see 
1 Kings xviii. 7. Of this kind probably was the worship paid by 
the leper to Christ (Matt. viii. 2), whom he took for a prophet. — 
William Lowth on Dan. ii. 46. 

Those who render, "they adored him," suppose that the magi 
were acquainted with the mystery of the Saviour's Incarnation and 
Divinity, which the apostles obtained only after his resurrection. I do 
not say this in order to favor a Christian sect that has false opinions 
on the person of the Saviour. It is certain that the Jews paid the 
homage of prostration to persons of dignity whom they respected. — 
Isaac de Beausobre on Matt. ii. 11 : Remarques, torn. i. p. 10. 

" To do him homage," npoaKw^aac amy. The homage of prostra- 
tion, which is signified by this Greek word in sacred authors as well 
as in profane, was, throughout all Asia, commonly paid to kings and 
other superiors, both by Jews and by Pagans. It was paid by Moses 
to his father-in-law (Exod. xviii. 7), called in the English translation 
" obeisance." The instances of this application are so numerous, both 
in the Old Testament and in the New, as to render more quotations 
unnecessary. When God is the object, the word denotes adoration 
in the highest sense. In old English, the term "worship" was 
indifferently used of both. It is not commonly so now. — Dr. 
George Campbell on Matt. ii. 2. 

UpooKvveiv, in the New Testament, particularly denotes, " with the 
head and body bent, to show reverence and offer civil worship to any 
one ; to salute any one, so as to prostrate the body to the ground, and 
touch it even with the chin ; " a mode of salutation which was almost 
universally adopted by Eastern nations. UpooKvveiv also signifies " to 
bend the knee in reverence and honor, or in supplication;" corre- 
sponding, in this sense, to the Hebrew word, ninMJlj " he bent " or 
" prostrated himself at the feet of any one for the sake of honor and 
reverence ; " for which it is used in the Septuagint, Gen. xviii. 2 ; 

xxiii. 7, 12; xix. i. Esth. iii. 2, 5, &c See Matt. ii. 2, 8, 11; 

viii. 2; ix. 18, comp. Mark v. 22 and Luke v. 12. Matt. xv. 25; 
xviii. 26 ; xx. 20 ; xxviii. 9, 17. Mark v. 6 ; xv. 19. John ix. 38. 
Acts x. 25. — J. F. Schleusner : Lexicon in Novum Testamzntum^ 
art. ZlpoGKvviu, 3. 



WITH SUPREME ADORATION. 471 

\ 2. Secondary, not Supreme, Homage paid, or required to bk 
paid, to Christ, after his Exaltation to Heaven. 

The former kind of worship [to Jesus as God] is not different 
from that which is exhibited to God the Father : the latter worship 
is not absolutely supreme, and is suitable to Christ as Mediator, but 
subordinate to that of the Father, by whom it has been graciously 
communicated to Christ, and is expressly commanded in Scripture to 
be paid to him. It therefore follows, that this worship does not 
terminate in Christ himself, but tends to the glory of God the Father, 
to whom it is either expressly or tacitly referred ; just as the honor 
which is manifested towards a legate does not terminate in him, but 
.ends to the glory of the king by whom he is sent. Thus, Phil. ii. 11 : 
" That every tongue should confess the Lord Jesus, to the glory of 
God the Father." The Lord Jesus is to be worshipped, because in 
his name every knee must bow, and every tongue confess him to be 
Lord ; and because the basis of this worship is his exaltation by the 
Father, for having suffered the death of the cross. But surely these 
circumstances are suitable to him, not as God, but as man, and 
directly refer to his office of Mediator. The whole of this adoration 
is subordinate to that of the Father, and terminates in him ; which is 
proved from the concluding words, " to the glory of God the Father." 
To this passage, and John v. 22, 23, may be added Heb. i. 6 from Ps. 
xcvii. 7. — Philip Limborch : Theol Christ, lib. v. cap. 18, § 2, 5. 

This unparalleled act of obedience God hath rewarded, by advan- 
cing his human nature to universal dominion, that the man Christ 
Jesus should now rule over, and be adored by, all creatures ; that all 
nations should acknowledge this king, and, by submitting to his laws 
and government, promote the glory of God the Father, who delights 
to be honored in the belief and obedience paid to his blessed Son and 
his gospel. — Dr. George Stanhope on Phil. ii. 9-11 : Comment on 
the Epistles and Gospels, vol. ii. p. 433. 

As the fundamental reason for which God the Father receiveth 
worship of the Jews and Gentiles is because he hath created all 
things, and preserves them by his will, to have it perfected and 
executed on them ; so the fundamental reason for which the Son is 
worshipped is because he was slain, and shed his blood to redeem 
thereby all mankind. — Charles Daubuz on Rev. v. 9. 

This writer afterwards endeavors to explain this Unitarian remaik in 
conformity with Trinitarianism 



472 CHRIST NOT TO BE WORSHIPPED 

In the Revelation of St. John, we have several hymns recorded, 
which the church of the first-born sing to God and to his Christ ; and 
we cannot form our devotions from a better copy than that which 
they have set us. In the fourth chapter [eleventh verse], the four 
and ;wenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and 
worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns 
before the throne, saying, "Thou art worthy, O Lord! to receive 
glory and honor and power ; for thou hast created all things, and for 
thy pleasure they are and were created." Here you see plainly that 
the adoration paid to God the Father is founded upon his being the 
Creator of all things. Look a little farther into the next chapter 
[chap. v. 9, 10], and you will find the same persons praising and 
adoring Christ Jesus, saying, " Thou art worthy to take the book, 
and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed 
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people 
and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests.; and 
we shall reign on the earth." Here you as plainly see the worship 
paid to Christ to be founded in this, that he was slain, and did by 
his blood redeem us ; nay, the very choir of angels sing praises to him 
in the same strain [ver. 12], saying, " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor 
and glory and blessing." From all which it is evident, that the 
worship paid to Christ is founded upon the redemption, and relates 
to that power and authority which he received from God at his resur- 
rection Here [Horn. x. 8, 9] you see St. Paul requires all men 

to honor the Lord Jesus upon this account, because " God hath raised 
him from the dead." Every man must " honor the Son, even as he 
honoreth the Father" [John v. 23]. This honor paid to the Son 
must proceed from this principle of faith, that in your heart you 
believe that God raised him from the dead, and made him Lord of 
all. ... If he be risen from the dead, if he now reigns in power at the 
right hand of the Almighty, if he received this power, and if he uses 
it in order to our salvation, can any thing be more absurd than to 
deny him those honors which are due to him in consequence of his 
glory, and necessarily flow from the relation we stand in towards 
him? The danger which some apprehend, in paying this duty to 
their Redeemer, of robbing God of his peculiar honor, and setting up 
a new and distinct object of worship, in opposition to those plain 
commands which confine our religious service to God alone, will 
vanish away, if we consider that all powers exercised by Christ, all 



WITH SUPREME ADORATION. 473 

honors paid to h.m, are ultimately referred to God, the Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. The honor and worship paid to the Son must 
either be part of the service we owe to God, or it must be inconsistent 
with it. If we have found out a new object of adoration for ourselves, 
we are offenders against the law, which says, " Thou shalt worship 
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve j " but if we honor 
Christ in consequence of the power and glory conferred on him by 
God, and in virtue of a command received from God to honor the 
Son even as we honor the Father, then the honor we pay to Christ is 
part of the service we owe to God, and arises even out of that com- 
mand, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
thou serve." . . . Hence it is manifest that the honor paid to Christ is 
ultimately referred to God the Father ; for, the honor paid to Christ 
being founded in the power and glory to which he is exalted, the honor 
paid must naturally follow the power and glory to which it relates, 
and, at the last, terminate in the Fountain and Origin of that power 
and glory, even God the Father. — Bishop Sherlock : Discourses, 
voL iv. pp. 63-8. 



In books the object of which is to prove the Deity of Christ, it is usual 
to assert that worship should be paid only to Almighty God ; and then to 
infer, from the New-Testament instances of reverence and gratitude exhi- 
bited towards our Lord, or commanded to be exhibited to him, that he is 
essentially divine in his nature and his attributes. But a falsity is contained 
in the premises from which the conclusion is drawn ; for, unless the worship 
be such as to imply the profoundest emotions of the heart and soul, it is 
not entitled to be called divine, and the being to whom the prayers and 
thanksgivings are presented is not necessarily God. There are, unquestion- 
ably, various degrees and qualities of worship, which, if not disproportioned 
to the object revered, are far from being worthy of blame. This feeling, 
with its expression, is involved in all the gratitude and veneration mani 
fested by one person towards another, — by the child towards its parents; 
by the pupil towards his teacher; by the dependant towards his superior; 
by men in general towards the eminently great and good of all ages, who 
have lived and labored and died for the welfare of their country or of their 
race. And this deep love, this reverential regard of the human hea?/ for 
those who have conferred happiness and blessings, unless it shuts cut God 
from the inmost recesses of the soul, has ever been thought to bring into 
play some of the best instincts and affections of our nature. If, then, as 
children, it is our sacred duty to honor our father and mother; if, as subjects 
and servants, we should reverence and obey such as have authority over 
us; if, as pupils in the school of letters or of life, we are to feel gratitude to 
those who have guided our steps, trained our minds, or taught us lessons of 
rectitude and love; if, as dependants in a world of order and subordination, 

40* 



474 CHRIST NOT TO BE WORSHIPPED 

and needful of the assistance of others, we may justly ask and use their 
aid; if, as inheritors of the intellectual and moral wealth bequeathed to us 
by patriots, poets, prophets, and philanthropists, we may cherish their 
memories, celebrate their anniversaries, and raise to their names the song 
of thanksgiving and joy, — without encroaching on the supreme and unri- 
valled honors due to Him from whom every good and perfect gift proceeds, 

— surely the sacred writers might enjoin the practice, or set the example, 
of obeying, honoring, and blessing that holy one whom God sent to be the 
Saviour of the world; whom " God anointed with the oil of gladness," of 
inspiration and power, " above his fellows ; " and whom, for his perfect 
obedience to the divine will, God raised to a glory far beyond that of other 
benefactors, — surely they might require and perforin all this, without 
meaning to assign to him that worship and adoration which is due, in the 
highest sense, to his Father and his God. 

The question, then, is not whether the first disciples and others paid 
honor and reverence to Jesus Christ, and whether he and his apostles 
enjoined worship to be offered to him; but, rather, whether this was meant 
to express divine, supreme adoration; whether it was presented, and was 
required to be presented, to him as the Messiah and Mediator, " through 
whom God was reconciling the world to himself," or, on the contrary, as 
the original Source and Author of the blessings of the gospeh Now, we 
have the strongest grounds for believing that the worship spoken of by the 
writers of the New Testament, in reference to their Lord and Master, was 
not of a primary, but of an inferior, kind ; that those who knew not the 
nature of his mission, but who felt respect for his character, and gratitude 
for his acts of benevolence, designed merely to pay him civil homage, — the 
worship usually manifested in the East to men of superior power and rank; 
and that the apostles, who had heard the behest of Jesus to honor him as 
the Son and Messenger of God, never once bent the knee to him, — never 
once, even in the unmeasured language of overflowing hearts, offered him a 
petition or a thanksgiving, — never once, either by implication or command, 
required for him the praises of the lip, the gratitude of the soul, or the 
obedience of the life, — in any sense which would attribute tc him the ho- 
nors of Divinity, or imply that he was greater than he always represented 
himself to be ; namely, the Agent, the chosen Servant, the great Prophet, 
the moral Image, and the beloved Child, of God. 

So marked is the difference in the nature of the worship recorded in the 
New Testament to have been paid to Almighty God, and to his best-beloved 
Son, and so frequently are the prayers and thanksgivings of the apostles 
directed to the God and Father of Christ, and so seldom to Christ himself, 

— him who, with blended lowliness and reverence, commanded religious 
service to be presented only to the Father, and never prayed to any other 
being or person, — that, notwithstanding their belief in the essential Deity 
of Christ, some of the orthodox have been forced to acknowledge that to 
the Father alone should primary adoration be given ; and that their own 
practice, and that of the churches to which they belong, is usually in accord- 
ance with the example and injunctions of Jesus and his apostles. 



WITH SUPREME ADORATION. 475 

These acknowledgments are verified partly by the extracts made in 
pp. 397-405, and partly by the observations in the present section, which 
interpret in a Unitarian sense some texts of Scripture which have been 
regarded as evincing the propriety of addressing our Lord as the object of 
supreme and unqualified adoration. 



In the whole range of religious controversy, there is nothing perhaps of 
so remarkable a kind as that which has been exhibited in the present chap- 
ter. It is virtually a triumphant vindication of Unitarian principles from 
the pens of honest and learned Trinitarians ; for, though more or less 
tinctured by unscriptural phraseology and thought, it does yet, by its ful- 
ness of rational and biblical proof for the inferiority of Christ to the Father, 
destroy the corner-stone of the foundation on which Trinitarianism is raised. 
It shows that in whatever light Christ maybe regarded, — whether as a pre- 
existent dweller in heaven, or as a sojourner upon earth, — whether as the 
son of Mary, or as the Child and Son of God, — whether as the Servant or 
the Representative of the Almighty, — whether as a Prophet in the form of 
a slave, or an Exemplar in the image of God; as the meekest and lowliest 
of divine Messengers, or the greatest and most sublime, — whether as he 
who was in the bosom of the Father, and had a perfect acquaintance with 
the Father's character and designs, or as he who was ignorant of the time 
of certain events, a knowledge of which did not come within the sphere of 
his mission, — whether as the worker of miracles and the author and 
bestower of eternal life, or as the petitioner of the Father and the doer of 
his will, — whether as Jehovah's Christ, or the people's Saviour, — whether 
as the tried and tempted, who overcame Satan by his disinterestedness and 
piety, or as the holy and sinless one, who shrank at the thought of equalizing 
his goodness with that of the infinite Source of all good, — whether as a 
suffering Messiah, or a moral Redeemer; the rejected of men, or the glorified 
of God; a crucified man, or a victorious and universal Potentate, the Lord 
and King of his church, the assessor at God's right hand, and the Judge of 
the world; — it shows, we say, that in all his existence, teachings, works, 
trials, sufferings, and state of glory, — in the Nazarean cradle, and in the 
carpenter's shop ; on the Sea of Genesareth, and on the banks of the Jor- 
dan; in the streets of Jerusalem, and in the villages of Galilee; at the 
mount sacred to Samaritan hearts, and in the temple hallowed by Jewish 
prayers, — he was filled with the life, the power, the inspiration, of the 
Father; proving that in the Father he lived and moved, and had his being; 
that on him he leaned for support ; that from him he derived strength and 
consolation; that to him were devoted his earliest and his latest thoughts, — 
his holy breathings, — his fervent prayers, — his ever-felt gratitude, — his 
heart and soul, with all their energies, all their promptings of love, reve 
rence, trust, obedience, and submission. 

By the particulars now enumerated, — which, for the sake of brevity 
and emphasis, we have expressed in our own terms, instead of repeating the 






476 CHRIST INFERIOR TO GOD. 

more amplified language of the writers previously quoted, — an attempt has 
been made to give a fair summary and representation of the principal con- 
tents of this chapter. And now we put the question to the mind of the 
unbiased reader, if acknowledgments of Christ's inferiority to the Father, 
or statements implicatory of this doctrine, such as these, should not be 
regarded as having brought to an end all controversy respecting the Deity 
of our Lord. For if he represents himself, and is represented by the apos- 
tles, in his condition, character, and offices, as a being dependent on and in 
subordination to God, he could not be, what creeds and churches say he 
was, God himself, or equal to him in power and glory ; nor could one portion 
of his nature, the human, have been metaphysically united to another por- 
tion, the divine, consisting of an infinite and eternal Agent distinct from the 
Father, and called God the Son; since the Scriptures never assert or clearly 
imply that the human nature of Jesus, or, as we would say, Jesus himself, 
stood or acted in relation to or in union with any other divine person than 
the Father. 

But, so long as it continues, error will, even after having thrown down 
its mightiest weapons at the feet of truth, retain some show or attitude of 
defence; and thus it is that Trinitarianism has been forced to depend on a 
few passages in Scripture which are thought to attribute to our Lord some 
of the characteristics or peculiar titles of Deity. But, if the sacred penmen 
are consistent with themselves in the views they have taken of the nature 
of Christ, is it not a justifiable and indeed a wise procedure to interpret a 
few texts which are obscure, doubtful, or figurative, by those which are 
plain, and by the general tenor of their writings; and, where the precise 
meaning of a particular passage cannot be obtained either from the language 
used or from the context, rather to restrain our judgment than have recourse 
to an explanation, which, though a passage in itself may bear it, is in- 
consistent with the author's known sentiments, or with the doctrines of 
Scripture as repeatedly expressed in terms of clear and unambiguous 
import? (See pp. 222-5.) Unquestionably, this is a very proper course. 
And accordingly, as will be proved in the remaining volumes of this work, 
these few texts are interpreted by some of the orthodox in a Unitarian 
sense, either on the ground that the divine names or titles are applied by 
the sacred writers, not to Christ, but to the Father; or, if applied to him, 
that they are used in a sense similar to that recognized by Jesus himself, 
"when, after quoting a passage in one of the Psalms, ho says (John x. 36) 
that they are " called gods to whom the word of God came." 



477 



! 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT NOT A THIRD PERSON IN THE GODHEAD, 
BUT GOD HIMSELF, OR HIS INFLUENCES, GIFTS, &c. 



SECT. I. — DEFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE FOR THE DEITY OF THE HOLY 
GHOST, AS A THIRD PERSON IN THE GODHEAD. 

It has been the method of the wisest and best men, since the date of Christianity, 
to prefer express Scripture, or certain consequences from Scripture, before merely 
human and philosophical conjectures. — Dr. Daniel Waterland. 

It cannot be proved, out of the whole number of passages in the 
Old Testament in which the Holy Spirit is mentioned, that this is a 
person in the Godhead ; and it is now the almost universally received 
opinion of learned commentators, that, in the language of the Jews, 
the " Holy Spirit " means nothing more than divine inspiration, with- 
out any reference to a person. — J. D. Michaelis : Anmerk. on John 
xvi. 13-15. 

The term " God " is never [in Scripture] expressly attributed to 
the Holy Spirit, though it is usual to infer it from Acts v. 4, where 
Peter, who in the third verse had asked Ananias, " Why hath Satan 
filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit ? " says, " Thou hast not lied 
unto men, but unto God." But, in our opinion, this deduction is not 
valid ,• for by the " Holy Spirit " are to be understood the gifts of the 
Holy Spirit, with which the apostles were furnished, and spoke in 
the name of God. Persons, therefore, who lie to the apostles 
speaking by the Holy Spirit of God, are rightly said to lie to the 
Holy Spirit; as those who despise the apostles are said to despise 
the Lord, and those who despise the Lord Jesus despise Him that sent 
him. — Philip Limborch: TheoL Christiana, lib. ii. cap. 17, § 23. 

The proof that divine worship was paid to the Holy Spirit is not 
so abundant and satisfactory as that adduced to prove that divine wor- 
ship was rendered to Christ. . . . These [the texts in which the Holy 



478 DEFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE 

Spirit is called God, &c] are sometimes used to prove the Divinity of 
the Holy Spirit, but are either inferior to the former in evidence, or 
have no bearing upon the subject. Writers have thought too much of 
the number of texts, and have collected indiscriminately many which 
have only an apparent relation to the subject. Especially they have 
endeavored to search out a multitude of texts in which the Holy Spirit 
is expressly called God. But the simple appellation "God" is not 
of itself sufficient to prove the Supreme Divinity of the subject to 
whom it is given, as Christ himself declared, John x. 34, 35. ... It 
is doubtful, in many of these texts in which the predicate " God " is 
used, whether the Holy Spirit as a person is intended. Many of 
them, at least, may be explained without necessarily supposing a 
personal subject. The following texts are often quoted : Acts v. 3, 4. 
Peter tells Ananias, ver. 3, that Satan had induced him xpevoaoOat rb 
Trvev^a aytov ["to lie to the Holy Spirit"], and afterwards, ver. 4. 
ovk Eipevao uvOpuiroig, aTCKa t£> -&e£) [" thou hast not lied unto men, but 
unto God"]. The same subject who is called the " Holy Spirit" in 
one place is called " God " in the other. But, from the comparison 
of other passages, it might be thought that the 7rvevfia uytov [Holy 
Spirit] was here to be understood in the subjective sense, and denoted 
the Spirit dwelling in the apostles ; the higher knowledge and gifts 
with which they were endowed ; their miraculous powers, as in ver. 32 ; 
and the passage could accordingly be explained thus : " Your crime is 
not to be considered as if you had intended to deceive mere men, 
because you knew that God had endowed us with supernatural know- 
ledge." This explanation is confirmed by the very clear text, 1 Thess. 
iv. 8, " He who despises us despises not men, but God," tov dovra rb 
irvevfia avrov rb hyiov dq yfiug ["who hath given unto us his Holy 
Spirit "]. Cf. Exod. xvi., where it is said, ver. 2, that the Israelites 
rebelled against Moses and Aaron ; but Moses tells them, ver. 8, 
" Your rebellion is not a gainst us, but against GW, whose messengers 
we are." Does this prove that Moses and Aaron belonged to the 
Godhead ? . . . Matt, xxviii. 19 cannot, in itself considered, be used 
as a proof-text, because the mere collocation of the name Holy Spirit 
with that of the Father and Son does not prove that he possesses 
divine nature in common with them. . . . The passage, 2 Cor. iii. 17, 
6 6e Kvpiog Tf^vEvjMc eon, has sometimes been translated, " the Spirit 
is Jehovah nimself." But the meaning is, " Christ is the true Spirit 
of the Old Testament ; " i. e., the OldTestament contains essentially 
the same doctrine which Christ taught, viz., the necessity of the 



FOR THE DEITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 479 

renewal of the heart, and inward piety. Some have endeavored to 
prove the Divinity of the Holy Spirit from a comparison of different 
texts ; but, in doing this, they have often resorted to forced and un- 
natural interpretations. An instance of this may be seen in the 
comparison of the texts, Isa. vi. 8-10 and Acts xxviii. 26, 27. In 
the former of these we read, " Jehovah said, Go to this people," &c. j 
but in the latter, Tzvevua to uyiov e/uilrjae did 'Hcaiov, . . . teyov, k.t.X, 
["the Holy Spirit spake by Esaias the prophet, . . . saying," &c] 
Here the same person who in the former text is called nirp [Jeho- 
vah], in the latter is called nvevua uyiov [the Holy Spirit]. But 
7rvev/xa uyiov may be used in its more general sense for the Deity, and 
does not here necessarily designate the person of the Holy Ghost. — 
G. C. Kxapp : Christian Theology, sect xL 

We have omitted from this quotation the following remarks of Dr- 
Knapp: " But when it is proved, from other texts, that Christ, the apostles, 
and the early Christians, understood the nvevfia uycov [Holy Spirit] to be a 
personal subject, belonging to the Godhead (as those concerned in this event 
undoubtedly did), then this text [Acts v. 3, 4] and many of the following 
may be regarded as satisfactory proof of the Divinity of this Spirit. But 
when introduced before these texts, by which their meaning is determined, 
or out of their relation to them, they prove nothing. The sense of the text 
in Acts, as determined by the preceding texts, is plainly this: i For you to 
intend to deceive us, who are apostles, — us, whom you knew to be under 
the special influence of the Holy Spirit, — is to be considered the same as 
if you had intended to deceive God; for you knew that he from whom this 
influence proceeds is regarded by us as God.' The same may be said with 
respect to the formula of baptism, Matt, xxviii. 19. . . . When his Divinity 
[that of the Holy Spirit] has been proved by other texts, then this also may 
be cited ; because from the former we learn how the latter must be under- 
stood, and was actually understood in the first ages of the church." 

That is, as we understand the qualification specified, Assume the truth 
of the proposition that the Holy Ghost is a third personal distinction in the 
divine nature, and certain passages of Scripture, which prove nothing of 
the kind, may be justly thought to afford satisfactory evidence for the doc- 
trine! But, after all, the interpretation of Acts v. 3, 4, which Dr. Knapp 
founds on the Trinitarian assumption, does not by any means imply that 
aither Peter or Ananias considered the Holy Spirit to be a person different 
from the Father; and the reason is perfectly obvious; for the Father, — the 
" Father of lights," from whom " cometh every good and every perfect 
gift," — the God who " anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the holy spirit and 
with power," imparting to him an unmeasured supply of that spirit, — is 
himself emphatically a Spirit, and claims from all his intelligent offspring 
that they worship him as true worshippers, " in spirit and in truth." See 
James i. 17. Acts x. 38. John iii. 34; iv. 23, 24. 



480 LACK OF PROOF FOR THE DEITY OF A THIRD PERSON 

In proof of the Deity of the Holy Spirit, as a third person in the God • 
head, this learned writer appeals to some half-dozen passages ; which, 
however, as will be seen in future volumes of our work, may be more 
scripturally explained either of the divine agency personified, or of God 
himself, without involving the notion of hypostatical distinctions. 

In theology, my father [pastor of a Lutheran church at Gersdorf 
and at Lichtenstein] remained true to the school of the celebrated 
Crusius, and hence belonged to the orthodox. Still he could tolerate 
more liberal views ; and I remember very well that he once said to a 
friend, what surprised me though a boy, " We cannot deny that our 
proofs for the independent Divinity of the Holy Spirit are very 
weak." — C. T. Bretschneider, in Bibliotheca Sac?-a for October, 
1852 ; vol. ix. pp. 660-1. 

There is one point, and only one, in which the evidence for the 
doctrine of the Trinity seems at all defective. In it [2 Cor. xiii. 14] 
Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are not called " God " in express 
terms. — Orthodox Presbyterian for July, 1830. 

2 Cor. iii. 17 . . . has been adduced [by even so clear-headed a 
theologian as the elder Edwards] as a proof-text to establish the 
doctrine of the Divinity of the third person in the Holy Trinity, and 
the equality of each and all in their essence and dignity. But in our 
view, according to all the rules of enlightened interpretation, the 
passage has no more to do with the Trinity than with the transmigra- 
tion of souls. That cardinal article of our faith is totally foreign 
from the train of reasoning pursued by the apostle, nor could he have 
introduced it there without doing violence to the laws of thought and 
association. — Christian Review for June, 1837 ; vol. ii, p. 212. 



Other authorities, acknowledging the deficiency of the evidence for the 
Deity of the Holy Ghost, as a person distinct from the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, have been noticed in preceding pages. Thus, in 
pp. 337-8, 344-5, 357-8, Stuart, Busiinell, and Sweetser, as well as J. D. 
Miciiaelis, confess that his personality was unknown to the Jews before 
and at the time of Christ; in pp. 366-8, 371, 374, 401, and 409, Erasmus and 
Coppenstein, Bishops Taylor and Atterbury, Dr. William Sherlock, 
Witsius, and the Oxford Tractarians, own that such a being is never in 
the Scriptures called "God;" and in pp. 374, 400-1, 403, Possevin, Du- 
rand, and Hugh de St. Cher, Bishop Taylor, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, 
Dr. Emmons, and ministers of churches belonging to the English Congrega- 
tionalists, that there is no instance, recorded in the Bible, of prayer having 
been offered up to him. 



THE IIOLY SPIKIT, GOD HIMSELF. 481 



SECT. LL — THE HOLY SPIRIT EITHER GOD, THE FATHER, OR THJS 
DIVINE POWER, INFLUENCES, OR GIFTS. 

The Sovereign Spirit of the world, 



Not content, 
By one exertion of creative power, 
His goodness to reveal, — through every age, 
Through every moment up the tract of time, 
His parent-hand, with ever-new increase 
Of happiness and virtue, has adorned 
The vast harmonious frame ; his parent-hand, 
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore 
To men, to angels, to celestial minds, 
For ever leads the generations on 
To higher scenes of being. 

Mark Akensidi. 

§ 1. God, without distinction of Persons. 

The term " Holy Spirit " has, in Scripture, various significations. 
First, it means God himself, who is a spirit that is holy, and who is 
sometimes characterized as having a soul. Thus, Jer. li. 14. Amos 
vi. 8, " God hath sworn by his soul ; " that is, by himself, In this 
sense is "Holy Spirit" used in Isa. lxiii. 10 [" But they rebelled, and 
vexed his Holy Spirit ; therefore he was turned to be their enemy, 
and he fought against them "]. — Philip Limborch : Theologia 
Christiana, lib. vi. cap. 6, § 2. 

As we perceive that God possesses, and that too in the highest 
perfection, those qualities of intelligence and will which constitute a 
spiritual existence, we justly conclude that he is a Spirit. Hence it 
follows, that all the attributes which he possesses as a Spirit are con- 
nected either with his understanding or his will. And, as he possesses 
these attributes in the highest perfection, he is the most perfect Spirit. 
...The Hebrew word HV, which is translated "spirit," signified, 
properly and originally, " wind," " breath " (and so " speech "), and 
u life." . . . The Hebrews gave the name rnn to all the invisible 
powers, whether physical or moral, which they saw in operation in 
the universe, and consequently to God himself, who is possessed of all 
conceivable powers, in the highest possible degree. Thus JTH and 
•rifT; FPH T Spirit of Jehovah] came to signify (a) the nature of God 

41 



482 THE HOLY SPIRIT, EITHER GOD HIMSELF, 

in general ; (b) his invisible power, as exercised both in the materia. 
world, in its creation (Gen. i. 2), &c, and in the soul of man, in 
promoting its moral improvement, in the act of inspiration, and in va- 
rious other ways : vide 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2. — G. C. Knapp : Christian 
Theology, sect. xix. 

To our minds, it [the phrase Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit] has a 
definite meaning. We understand it as the third person of the Holy 
Trinity. The usage in the Old Testament does not necessarily imply 
such a knowledge. It is sometimes a term convertible with God. 
Sometimes it means a divine influence. It is the exerted or manifested 
power of Jehovah. It is either God himself, or an agency assumed as 
the medium of the divine operation. There is no positive evidence 
that the Spirit spoken of in the Old Testament was recognized either 
as a mode of the divine existence, or as one of a Trinity of persons 
in the divine essence. It was either a name of God himself, not 
indicating any peculiarity in his nature, or the expression of the divine 
energy as it produced results in the material world, or enlightened 
and directed the human mind. — Dr. Seth Sweetser, in Bibliotheca 
Sacra for January, 1854 ; vol. xi. p. 99. 

§ 2. The Holy Spirit, the Power, Influence, or Gifts 
of God. 

He that will carefully observe the language of the Holy Ghost 
shall find that this word " Spirit," or " Holy Ghost," is most usually, 
in the New Testament, taken for the extraordinary gifts of that age. 
— Richard Baxter : Unreasonableness of Infidelity ; in Practical 
Works, vol. xx. p. 7. 

For the better understanding of these words [viz. "full of the 
Holy Ghost," in Luke iv. 1.], it is to be observed, that by the term 
" Holy Ghost " is to be understood the prophetic gifts wherewithal 
Christ was filled for the preaching and publishing of the gospel, as 
the revealing of the will of God, and working miracles. The Jews, 
by the phrase " Holy Ghost," continually intend prophetic gifts, 
wherewith men and women were endued; and in this sense is the 
expression most constantly to be taken in the New Testament, when 
it speaketh not of the third person in the Trinity itself; as, Luke L 
15, 41, 67. John vii. 39. Acts ii. 4; viii. 18; x. 44; xiii. 52; xix. 2; 
and in very many other places. To work miracles, to expound diffi- 
culties, to heal diseases, to teach divinity, to foretell things to come, 



OR THE DIVINE POWER, INFLUENCE, OR GIFTS. 483 

and the like, were not so properly the fruit of the union of the human 
nature to the Godhead ; for even mere men had been enabled to do 
the same. — Abridged from Dr. John Lightfoot : Harmony of the 
Four Evangelists ; in Works, vol. iv. pp. 351-3. 

" Spirit " signifies wind or breath ; and in the Old Testament *it 
stands frequently in that sense. The " Spirit of God," or " wind of 
God," stands sometimes for a high and strong wind ; but more fre- 
quently it signifies a secret impression made by God on the mind of 
a prophet. In the New Testament, this word u Holy Ghost " stands 
most commonly for that wonderful effusion of those miraculous virtues 
that was poured out at Pentecost on the apostles; by which their 
spirits were not only exalted with extraordinary degrees of zeal and 
courage, of authority and utterance, but they were furnished with the 
gifts of tongues and of miracles. And, besides that first and great 
effusion, several Christians received particular talents and inspirations, 
which are most commonly expressed by the word " Spirit " or inspi- 
ration. Those inward assistances by which the frame and temper 
of men's minds are changed and renewed are likewise called " the 
Spirit," or the " Holy Spirit," or " Holy Ghost." So Christ said to 
Nicodemus, that, " except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God ; " and that his " heavenly Father 
would give the Holy Spirit to every one that asked him." By these 
it is plain that extraordinary or miraculous inspirations are not meant ; 
for these are not every Christian's portion. — Bishop Burnet : 
Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. V. p. 84. 

There are many passages in which " the Spirit of God " means 
gifts or powers communicated to men, and from which, we are not 
warranted to infer that there is a person who is the fountain and 
distributer of these gifts. So we read often in the Old Testament, 
"The Spirit of the Lord came upon him," when nothing more is 
necessarily implied under the expression than that the person spoken 
of was endowed with an extraordinary degree of skill or might or 
wisdom. So the promises of the Old Testament, " I will pour out my 
spirit upon you," were fulfilled under the New Testament by what are 
there called " the gifts of the Holy Ghost ; " in reference to which we 
read, " that Christians received the Holy Ghost," " that the Holy 
Ghost was given to them," " that they were filled with the Spirit." 
Neither the words of the promise, nor the words that relate to the 
fulfilment of it, suggest the personality of the Spirit. — Dr. George 
Hill : Lectures in Divinity, vol. i. p. 439. 



484 THE HOLY SPIRIT EITHER GOD OR HIS GIFTS. 

It is agreed, on all sides, that the word " spirit," originally signi- 
fying air in motion, and breath, was applied in some more remote 
significations, and particularly to mind and its affections, to intelligent 
creatures superior to man, and to any species of powerful influence, 
the cause of which was imperfectly or not at all known ; but more 
especially to the immediate energy of the Deity ; and, in a still more 
restricted sense, to the Deity himself. It is further admitted, that, 
in many places, the phrase " spirit of God " and its synonyms are 
used to denote any especial influence or energy of God, whether 
exercised in a miraculous manner, or according to the ordinary laws 
of nature. But an accurate examination will, I conceive, satisfactorily 
show that, &c. — Dr. J. P. Smith : Script. Testimony to the Messiah, 
vol. ii. p. 446. 

ETHp n*H [" Holy Spirit"] frequently signifies the divine nature, 
or God himself; but it also denotes the divine power, as displayed 
both in the material and spiritual world ; also the divine understand- 
ing and knowledge, and the communication of it to men. . . . All who 
oppose the truth of God, or persecute the prophets who teach it, even 
those who put hindrances in the way of the influence of religion over 
themselves or others, are said to resist the Holy Spirit, to afflict, to 
grieve it, &c., Isa. lxiii. 10; Eph. iv. 30; Acts vii. 51. Since, now, 
the sacred writers, like all others, make use of the figure prosopopeia, 
and personify these divine influences, — speaking of them as the 
" Holy Spirit," as they often do of the wisdom and other attributes 
of God, — we should be cautious in the selection of texts from which 
the personality of the Holy Spirit is to be proved. We should rest 
content with those which are most clear and explicit ; for nothing is 
gained by collecting a large number. — Geo. C. Knatp : Christian 
Theology, sect, xxxix. I. 

For proof of the personality of the Holy Ghost, as different from that of 
the Father, Dr. Knapp rests chiefly on John xiv. 16, 17 ; xv. 26 ; and on a 
few other passages, which represent the Spirit of God as willing, searching, 
speaking, sending, &c. But those to which he refers in the Gospel of John 
teach, according to the acknowledgment of our author, that the Spirit was 
commissioned by and dependent on the Father and the Son ; and therefore, 
unhappily for the Trinitarian cause, prove too much. The other passages 
may easily be brought under Knapp's own principles of interpretation; 
that is, the Holy Spirit may either signify God himself, without having 
any reference to hypostatical distinctions, or, by the figure prosopopeia, be 
spoken of as having personal attributes, without implying a real personal 
consciousness. 



THE HOLT SPIRIT INFERIOR TO GOD. 485 



SECT. in. — THE HOLY SPIRIT, IF A PERSON DIFFERENT FROM THE 
FATHER, INFERIOR TO HIM AND CHRIST. 

That heavenly Teacher, sent from God, 

Shall your whole soul inspire ; 
Your minds shall fill with sacred truth, 

Your hearts with sacred fire. 

Scotch Paraphrase. 

There is an order, by which, of these persons, the Father is the 
first, the Son the second, and the Holy Ghost the third. Nor is this 
order arbitrary or external, but internal and necessary, by virtue of a 
subordination of the second unto the first, and of the third unto the 
first and second. The Godhead was communicated from the Father 
to the Son, not from the Son unto the Father. . . . Again, the same 
Godhead was communicated by the Father and the Son unto the 
Holy Ghost, not by the Holy Ghost to the Father or the Son. . . . 

This was also done from all eternity The Father is never 

sent by the Son, because he received not the Godhead from him; 
but the Father sendeth the Son, because he communicated the God- 
head to him. In the same manner, neither the Father nor the Son 
is ever sent by the Holy Spirit, because neither of them received 
the divine nature from the Spirit ; but both the Father and the Son 
sendeth the Holy Ghost, because the divine nature, common to both 
the Father and the Son, was communicated by them both to the Holy 
Ghost. ... As the Son is God of God by being of the Father, so the 
Holy Ghost is God of God by being of the Father and the Son, as 
receiving that infinite and eternal essence from them both. — Bishop 
Pearson : Exposition of the Creed, Art. VHI. pp. 452, 454-5. 

The Holy Ghost ... is not self-originated, but proceedeth from 
the Father eternally as his original, and is sent by the Son. — Bishop 
Bull : Life by Robert Nelson, p. 304. 

The dogma of the Spirit's eternal procession seems to be quite repug- 
nant to reason, and is certainly nowhere revealed in the Sacred Scriptures : 
see Dr. Isaac Barrow, as quoted in p. 319; and Cochl^eus, Masenius, 
Richard Hooker, Bishop Sanderson, Le Clerc, and James Carole, 
in pp. 273-4, 331-2, 367, 375. But the supposition of its truth would neces 
6arily imply the inferiority of such a being to the person or persons from 
whom he derived his existence and perfections, as is proved, in pp. 270-2, 
274-6, 322-3, by Schleiermacher, Emmons, Stuart, D. W. Clark, and 
James Hughes. 

41* 



486 THE SPIRIT, IP A DIFFERENT PERSON, INFERIOR TO CHRIST. 

Let it be considered, that, however great and glorious, however 
mighty and powerful, however wise and knowing, however venerable 
and adorable, this person [the Holy Ghost] is, and however intimate 
with and united to God the Father, yet that all that he is, and all 
that he does, is to be referred to Christ, as the Author and Fountain 
of it. — Dr. Daniel Waterland : Eight Sei-mons, pp. 193-4. 

It is one benefit or privilege of the person of Christ, when spoken 
of as distinct from the Father, to have the Spirit of God under him, 
to be at his disposal, and to be his Messenger; which is infinitely 
too much for any creature. John xv. 26 ; xvi. 7, 13, 14 ; and Acts 
ii. 33. — President Edwards : Works, vol. iii. p. 535. 

The Spirit, who revealed the gospel to the apostles, and enabled 
them to confirm it by miracles, received the whole from Christ. He, 
therefore, is the light of the world ; and the Spirit, who inspired the 
apostles, shone on them with a light borrowed from him. So Christ 
himself hath told us, John xvi. 13-15. — Dr. James Macknight: 
Translation of the Apostolical Epistles, Essay 1. 

As Christ glorifies the Father, so the Spirit glorifies Christ : he is 
the vicegerent and deputy of Christ, as Christ of the Father. He 
glorifies, not himself, but Christ, and, in Christ, God. — Robert 
Hall : Notes of Sermons ; in Works, voL iv. p. 568. 



The inferiority of the Holy Ghost to the Father, or to the Father and the 
Son, is also acknowledged by Dr. Isaac Barrow, Archbishop Tillotson, 
Bishop Fowler, Witsius, Limborch, and Holden, as already quoted in 
pp. 266, 280, 393-5. To these authorities it would be easy to add a host 
of others. 

Those passages, however, which speak of the Holy Spirit as a person 
distinct from and inferior to the Father and the Son, are better explained on 
the supposition that the power of God, which was communicated to Christ, 
and which he promised as a Comforter or Teacher to the apostles, was, 
according to a figure of speech common in all languages, personified. This 
interpretation is borne out by the fact, that, in the Acts of the Apostles, 
where the promise is mentioned as having been fulfilled, this Holy Spirit is 
U3ually spoken of in terms which are more applicable to a thing than to a 
being. See Baxter, Lightfoot, Burnet, and Hill, as quoted in pages 
482-3. 



INDEXES. 



L — TEXTS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO. 



GENESIS. Page. 

i 228 

i. 2 482 

i. 3 348 

vi. 6 350 

viii. 21 350 

xii. 7 ......... 414 

xvii. 1 414 

xviii. 1 414 

xviii. 2 470 

xix. 1 • . . 470 

xxii. 2, 12, 16 420 

xxiii. 7, 12 470 

xxyi. 2, 24 414 

xxvi. 3 . 350 

xxxix. 2 350 

xlviii. 3 414 

xlviii. 15, 16 414 

EXODUS. 

iii. 2, 4-6, 14 415 

vi. 3 414 

vii. 1 425 

xvi. 2, 8 478 

xviii. 7 470 

xix. 17 350 

xx. 3 389 

xxii. 28 425 

xxxii. 4, 8 178 

LEVITICUS. 

xvi 2 414 

xxvi. 46 350 

DEUTERONOMY. 

iv. 35 388, 389 

iv. 35 39 390 

V. 6 350 

vi. 4 . 22, 262, 286, 311, 334, 337 
389, 390, 391 



deut. (continued). Page. 

viii. 3 349 

xviii. 15-19 360 

xx. 1 350 

xxxii. 39 389, 390 



JUDGES. 



ii. 1 



416 



I. SAMUEL. 

x. 10 483 

xvi., xvii., xxiv., xxvi. . . . 192 

II. SAMUEL. 

ix. 6 470 

xiv. 33 470 

xxiii. 1, 2 482 

I. KINGS. 

xii. 22 349 

xviii. 7 470 

II. KINGS. 

x. 15 40-1 

xix. 35 416 

I. CHRONICLES. 

xvii. 3 349 

II. CHRONICLES. 

i. 7 414 

xi. 20 192 

xiii. 2 192 

xvi. 3 349 



ii. 45-54 



iii. 2, 5, &c. 



EZRA. 



206 
470 



488 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



JOB. 

iii 193 

xlii. 7, 8 193 

xlii. 9 350 

PSALMS. 

ii. 4 350 

ii. 7 420 

xviii. 31 3S9 

xix. 7, 8 237 

xxii. 20 420 

xxxiii. 6 348 

xxxv. 17 420 

xxxvi. 9 8 

xlv. 1 8 

xlv. 6 425, 426, 430 

xlv. 7 466 

li. 11 337 

lxxxii. 6 425 

lxxxvi. 10 390 

xc. 2 284 

xcvii. 7 471 

xcvii. 9 425 

cvii. 20 349 

ex. 7 465 

cxix. 50, 89 349 

cxlvii. 15, 18 349 

ISAIAH. 

vi. 8-10 479 

vii. 14 426 

ix. 6 427 

xxvi. 4 346 

xl. 8 349 

xl. 25 385 

xliv. 4 174 

xliv. 24 284 

xliv. 6, 8 388, 389, 390 

xlv. 5, 6, 18, 21, 22 . . 389, 390 

xlviii. 12 388 

Iv. 11 349 

lxiii. 10 481, 484 

lxv. 5 73 

JEREMIAH. 

1.13 178 

vi. 26 420 

vii. 4 35 

xxvii. 1 349 

xxxi. 3 414 

xxxiv. 8 • . . 349 

xxxvi. 1 349 

li. 14 481 

EZEKIEL. 

i 336 

DANIEL. 

ii. 46 470 

iv. 35 388, 389 



JOEL. Page 

ii. 28, 29 483 

AMOS. 

vi. 8 481 

viii. 10 420 

HABBAKUK. 
i. 2, 3 193 

ZECHARIAH. 

xii. 10 420 

MALACHI. 

ii. 10 286 

MATTHEW. 

i. 20 420 

i. 23 426, 458 

ii. 2, 8, 11 470 

ii. 15-18 189 

iv. 1-11 . . . 450, 451, 452, 453 

iv. 4 349, 452 

iv. 10 389, 473 

v. 18, 20, 22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44 . 441 

vi. 9 323, 399 

vii. 1 116 

vii. 29 440 

viii. 2 470 

viii. 2, 6 442 

viii. 3 . t 441 

ix. 2 441 

ix. 2, 6 464 

ix. 18 470 

xi. 25 399 

xi. 27 422,468 

xii. 6, 8 464 

xii. 9-12 170 

xii. 50 26 

xiii. 11 248 

xiii. 41 465 

xiii. 54 434 

xv. 22 442 

xv. 25 470 

xvi. 13-16 469 

xvi. 14, 16, 22 352 

xvi. 16 243, 419 

xvi. 27 464, 465, 467 

xvii. 1 .190 

xvii. 5 420, 421 

xviii. 26 470 

xix. 17 411 

xx. 20 470 

xx. 23 422 

xxi. 25 417 

xxii. 30-32 189 

xxii. 31, 32 416 

xxiii. 9 179 

xxiii. 16-33 170 

xxiv. 23, 26 178 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



489 



matt, (continued). Page. 

xxiv. 30 465 

xxv. 31 465 

xxv. 40 98 

xxvi. 36-44 448 

xxvi. 37-39 455 

xxvi. 39, 42 456 

xxvi. 63, 64 419 

xxvii. $0. 43 419 

xxvii. 44 190 

xxvii. 46 448 

xxvii. 6? 443 

xxviii. 9, 17 470 

xxviii. 18 422, 465, 468 

xxviii. 18-20 466 

xxviii. 19 .... 10, 232, 301, 357 
367-8, 478, 479 

MARK. 

i. 41 441 

ii. 5 441 

iv. 39 441 

v. 6, 22 470 

Vi. 3 442 

ix. 38 64, 99, 124 

x. 18 411 

xii. 29 . . . 22, 262, 286, 311, 391 

xii. 32-34 286 

xiii. 21 178 

xiii. 32 219,422 

Xiv. 32-39 448 

xiv. 33, 34 455 

Xiv. 50 353 

xiv. 61, 62 419 

xv. 19 470 

xv. 32 419 

XV. 34 448 

LUKE. 

i. 1-3 188 

i. 15, 41, 67 482 

i. 32, sea 419 

i. 35 420,421 

i. 36, 40 435 

ii. 46 436 

ii. 52 434 

iii. 38 421 

iv. 1 482 

iv. 4 349 

iv. 8 473 

iv. 18 436 

.v. 41 419 

v. 12 470 

v. 13, 20 441 

vi. 12 448 

vi. 26 150 

vii. 16 469 

ix. 28 190 

X. 21 399 

Xi. 2 323, 399 



LUKE (continued). Page. 

xi. 13 483 

xii. 32 149 

xii. 50 455 

xiv. 1-6 170 

xvii. 15-19 27 

xvii. 19 28 

xvii. 21, 23 178 

xviii. 19 411 

xxii. 32, 41-45 448 

xxii. 42 454 

xxii. 43 219 

xxii. 44 455 

xxiii. 34, 46 448 

xxiii. 39 190 

xxiv. 11, 25 354 

JOHN. 

i. 1 . 219, 338, 427, 428, 444, 467-8 

i. 1, 3 413, 425 

i. 1-14 . . . 228, 345, 357-8, 413 

i. 6 417 

i. 14 . 106, 420, 421, 422, 431, 444, 461 

i. 14, 18 273 

i. 18 . . . . 219, 278, 364, 432, 449 

i. 49 419 

iii. 2 469 

iii. 3, 5 483 

iii. 5-16 222 

iii. 13 417 

iii. 16 ... . 206, 266, 422, 443 

iii. 34 198, 440, 479 

iii. 35 ..... . 420, 421, 468 

iv. 11 . 443 

iv. 23 404 

iv. 23, 24 479 

iv. 34 446 

iv. 42 245 

v. 7 443 

v. 19 410, 447, 462 

v. 19, 20, 30 266 

v. 19, 26, 27 422 

v. 19, 30 408, 448 

v. 22, 23 471 

v. 22, 25, 27 467 

v. 22, 26, 27 468 

v. 22, 27 465 

v. 23 472,474 

v. 25, 27 419 

v. 27 464 

v. 37 415 

vi. 38-40, 57 422 

vi. 38, 41, 42, 45, 46, 50, 51, 58 . 417 

vi. 40 94 

vi. 57 266 

vi. 60, seq 222 

vi. 63 262 

vi. 69 243 

vii. 15 434 

vii. 16 440 



490 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



john (continued). Page. 

vii. 17 251 

vii. 39 482 

viii. 28 447, 448 

viii. 42 417 

viii. 51-57 ....... 222 

viii. 54 422 

ix. 38 470 

x. 18 422 

x.. 30 10, 446, 450, 461 

x, 31 420 

x. 34, 35 425, 478 

x. 35 476 

x. 36 117, 421 

x. 38 420, 422, 438 

xi. 25-27 243 

xi. 25, 26, 43 441 

xi. 27 245 

xi. 41 422 

xi. 41, 42 448 

xii. 21 442 

xii. 27 455 

xii. 49, 50 422, 439 

xiii. 3 464-5, 468 

xiii. 18 189 

xiii. 35 25, 55, 66 

xiv. 9 434 

xiv. 9, 10 352-3 

xiv. 10 . . . 420, 421, 422, 439, 447 

xiv. 16, 17 484 

xiv. 28 . 266, 270, 410, 411, 422, 445 

xv. 15 364 

xv. 16 . . 399 

xv. 26 273, 484, 486 

xvi. 7, 13, 14 486 

xvi. 12 364 

xvi. 12, 13 354, 362 

xvi. 12-14 363 

xvi. 13-15 .... 251, 477, 486 

xvi. 23, 26 404 

xvi. 28 417 

xvii. 1-4, 6 422 

xvii. 2 468 

xvii. 3 . 22, 245, 323, 372, 389, 390 
409, 428, 433 

xvii. 5 466 

xvii. 18 417, 440 

xvii. 21 51 

xvii. (whole chapter) . . 448, 456 

xx. 2, 15 442 

xx. 13 124 

xx. 17 266 

xx. 28 352-3, 428, 429 

xx. 31 243 

xxi. 15 31 

ACTS. 

3 357 

ii. 4 482, 483 

ii. 17, 18, 38 483 



ACTS (continued). Page- 

ii. 22 360,455 

ii. 22-36 244 

ii. 31-36 467 

ii. 33 486 

ii. 33-36 466 

ii. 33, 41 358 

ii. 36 464 

in. 13-26 244 

iii. 22 .360 

iv. 4 358 

iv. 8, 31 483 

v. 3, 4 479 

v. 3, 4, 32 478 

v. 4 477 

v. 32 483 

vi. 3, 5 483 

vii. 30 415-16 

vii. 51 484 

vii. 55 483 

viii. 12 244 

viii. 17, 18 482, 483 

viii. 37 246 

ix. 17 483 

ix. 20 244 

x 190 

x. 25 470 

x. 35 ... 79 

x. 38 ... . 261, 440, 449, 479 

x. 42 467 

x. 44-47 482, 483 

xi. 23, 24 97 

xi. 24 483 

xi. 26 • 122 

xiii. 9, 52 483 

xiii. 28-30 244 

xiii. 38 455 

xiii. 52 482 

xv. 8 483 

xvi. 30 442 

xvi. 31 244, 245 

xvi. 31-34 246 

xvi. 32, 33 358 

xvii. 16-32 361 

xvii. 18-20 244 

xvii. 31 . . . 429, 455, 465, 467 

xviii. 17 125 

xix. 2 482, 483 

xx. 27 365 

xx. 28 429 

xxiii. 3 197 

xxiv. 14 123 

xxvi. 28 122 

xxviii. 26, 27 479 

ROMANS. 

i. 13 198 

i. 17 » 245 

ii. 16 467 

iii. 30 280 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



491 



komans (continued). Page. 

?. 5 483 

viii. 26 399 

viii. 29, 32 420, 421 

viii. 31, 32 266 

ix. 5 . . 219, 357-8, 425, 429, 430 

x. 6-8 230 

x. 8, 9 243, 472 

xii. 18 49 

xiv 75 

xiv. 1 51, 80 

xiv. 9 455, 465, 466 

xiv. 10, 13 50 

I. CORINTHIANS. 

i. 13 145 

i. 30 315 

ii. 2 243 

ii. 8 466 

iv. 1 248 

iv. 6 243 

vii. 19 70 

viii. 4 388, 389 

viii. 4-6 286, 390 

viii. 5 425 

viii. 6 262, 396, 413 

xi. 4-10 189 

xiii. 5, 7 37 

xiv. 2, 4, 11 . . . . . . . 325 

xv. 1-4 243 

xv. 24-28 423 

xv. 27 411, 429 

xv. 28 307 

xv. 51 248 

xvi. 22 75 

II. CORINTHIANS. 

i. 22 483 

iii. 7 189 

iii. 17 478, 480 

iv. 6 458 

v. 4 175 

v. 5 483 

v. 10 328 

v. 19 398, 426, 474 

v. 21 451 

xi. 31 411 

xiii. 14 315, 316, 480 

GALATIANS. 

ii. 11-13 194 

ii. 13, 14 197 

iii. 20 286 

iv. 4 266 

v. 19, 20 72 

Vi. 7 104 

EPHESIANS. 

i. 8 399, 404 

i. 6 426 



ephesians (continued). Page. 

i. 9, 10 248-9 

i. 11 388 

i. 17 396, 404 

i. 17-23 466 

i. 20 467 

i. 20-22 465 

i. 20, seq 466 

ii. 13, 18, 19 426 

ii. 18 404, 463 

iii. 3, 6, seq 249 

iii. 14 399, 404 

iv. 2 45 

iv. 6 286 

iv. 30 484 

v. 5 433 

vi. 19 249 

vi. 24 - . . 66, 83 

philippians. 

ii. 3-8 . . 29 

ii. 5-11 468 

ii. 6 30 

ii. 6, 7 439 

ii. 8 444-5 

ii. 8-11 465 

ii. 9 429, 467 

ii. 9, 10 466 

ii. 9-11 471 

ii. 10 444 

ii. 11 408, 471 

iv. 1 426 

COLOSSIANS. 

i. 12 404 

i. 13 420, 421 

i. 15 . . . 419, 420, 422, 428, 462-3 

i. 16, 17 413 

i. 17 466 

i. 26, 27 249 

ii. 8 242 

ii. 9 431, 461 

I. THESSALONIANS. 

i. 9 396 

iii. 11 401 

iv. 8 478, 483 

v. 21 135 

I. TIMOTHY. 

i. 5 242 

i. 10, 13 24L 

i. 17 286,398 

ii. 5 . . 286, 323, 398, 445, 455, 467 

iii. 9 248 

iii. 16 . 218, 219, 247 374, 430, 445 
458, 462, 467 

v. 21 433 

v. 23 188, 193 

vi. 3 243 



492 



INDEX OP TEXTS. 



I. HM. (continued). Page. 
vi.4 ........ 74, 242 

vi. 13 433 

vi. 20 242 

II. TIMOTHY. 

i. 13 242 

ii. 19 123 

ii. 23 242 

iii. 16 193 

iv. 3 241 

iv. 13 188, 193 

TITUS. 

i. 9, 13 241 

ii. 1,2,8 241 

ii. 18 411,425,431 

iii. 10 75 

HEBREWS. 

1.1,2 235,417 

i. 2, 3 413 

i. 3 . . 333,362,422,434,458,460 

i. 5 420,421 

i. 6 471 

i. 6, 9 466 

i. 8, 9 425 

i. 9 266, 474 

ii. 4 483 

ii. 7, 8 464 

ii. 9, 10, 14-17 467 

ii. 10 468 

iii. 4 425,431 

iv. 12 349 

iv. 15 451 

v. 8 434, 451 

v. 5-9 422 

v. 9 245 

v.-ix 189 

x. 7, 9 309 

xi. 1 71 

xi. 3 349 

xi. 6 244 

xii. 2 232,467 

xiii. 9 242 

JAMES. 

i.17 417,479 

ii. 19, sea 286, 390 

Ui. 16-17 417 



I. peter. Page 

i. 3 399, 404, 411 

i. 19 451 

i. 23 349 

ii. 22 198 

iii. 22 466 

iv. 16 122 

II. PETER. 

i. 1 431 

i. 1, 2 433 

ii. 1 72 

iii. 5 349 

iii. 16 228 

I. JOHN. 

ii. 22 433 

iii. 3, 5 451 

iii. 8 106 

iii. 24 483 

iv. 2 419 

iv. 9, 10 266 

iv. 10 443 

iv. 13 483 

iv. 16 75 

v. 1, 6 419 

v. 7 . . 10, 11, 219, 220, 367-8, 371 

v. 12 94 

v. 20 .... 398,425,428,432 

n. JOHN. 

10,11 75 

JUDE. 

3 242 

3,19,23 75 

4 219, 433 

20 399 

REVELATION. 

i. 8 433 

iii. 12 417 

iii. 21 468 

iv. 11 472 

v. 9 471 

v. 9, 10, 12 472 

v. 12, 13 406 

v. 13 400 

xi. 17 23 



493 



IL — EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS REFERRED TO. 



Arms . • • . • • • • • . • . pp. 62, 86 

Athanasius 4,62,251,253,269,273,359 

Augustine 87, 152, 252, 326, 329 

Barnabas •••••••••••• 195 

Beda or Bedo •••••31 

Boethius 280 

Chrysostom ••••••••••• 859,360 

Celestius 105 

Cyril of Alexandria . .... 312 

Gregory Nazianzen •••••••••• 234 

Gregory Nyssen • • 287,288,312 

Hilary ....•••••... 812 

Ignatius ••••••••••••• 195 

Irenseus • ••••••••••• 261 

Jerome 831,440 

John Philoponus • ••• 812 

Justin Martyr • .... 342 

Origen •• •• 261,359 

Pelagius ••••••••••..105 

Polycarp ••••••• 195 

Rufinus 261 

Sabellius 4,304-5,306 

Tertullian • • 261, 320 

Theophilua rf Antiooh • • • • • ... 33? 



42 



494 



HI. — TRINITARIANS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.* 



The letter (r.) denotes that the authors in the pages indicated are not quoted, 
but referred to. 

A. 

Abbott, Jacob .... 64, 142, 144, 155, 159, 233, 448, 452, 463 

Adam, Robert, B.A 102 

Akenside, Mark • 481 (motto) 

Allix, Peter, D.D 343 (r.), 344 (r.) 

Anselm, Archbishop • • 312 

Arminius, James 279 

Arnold, Thomas, D.D. . 50, 61, 75, 82, 118, 150, 168, 175, 187 (r.), 192, 204 
255, 261, 313, 328, 363, 460. 

Ascusnage 812 

Ashwell, George ....87 

Atterbury, Bishop 868 

Aubrey, John, Esq 88 (r.) 

B. 

Bacon, Lord . 89 (r.), 131 (motto), 132, 142 (r.), 149, 153, 180, 208 (r.) 

318, 319, 366 (motto). 
Bailey, Philip James, Esq. . . . .25, 125, 143, 250. (Mottoes.) 

Balmer, Robert, D.D 45, 47 (i\), 54 (r.), 65, 82, 134 

Barnes, Albert . 249 

Barrow, Isaac, D.D., F.R.S. . . . 230, 260, 280, 289, 312, 314, 319 

Barrows, E. P., M.A 445 

Basnage, James .......... 335 

Bathurst, Bishop .... 113 

Baxter, Richard . 35, 48, 49 (r.), 55, 56, 67, 73, 77, 80, 126, 131 (motto), 
133, 139, 143, 155, 158, 162, 172, 177, 200, 206, 231 
243 (motto), 250, 312, 314, 482. 

Beattie, James, LL.D 236 

Beansobre, Isaac de ........ 347 (r.), 470 

Beecher, Edward, D.D 105, 128, 153, 164, 170, 216 

Bellarmine, Cardinal 334, 376 (r.) 

Bengel, John Albert 218 (r.) 

Bennet, Bishop Ill 

* We intend to give, at the close of our last volume, a complete list of the books 
quoted, and the editions used; with some particulars respecting the authors. 



INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 495 

Bennet, Thomas, D.D 362 

Bentley, Richard, D.D 185 (motto) 

Beveridge, Bishop 314, 320, 339, 367 

Beza, Theodore 193 (r.), 433 (r.) 

Bibliotheca Sacra, Writers in the 161 

Bingham, Joseph 312 

Blayney, Benjamin, D.D. 185 

Blomfield, Bishop 343 

Bloomfield, Samuel Thomas,*D.D., F.S.A. . . 215 (r.), 411, 429, 432 

Bond, T. E., jun 31, 136 

Boothroyd, Benjamin, LL.D 193 (r.), 420 

Brentius, or Brentzen, John • 438 

Bretschneider, C. T., Father of 480 (r.) 

Brewster, Sir David •••••••••. 119 (r.) 

Brougham, Lord 119, 120 (r.) 

Browne, Sir Thomas 820, 331 (motto) 

Browne, John, M.A 340 

Bull, Bishop . 4 (r.), 91 (r.), 270 (r.), 286 (r.), 2* 8 (r.), 312, 314 (r.), 394 
395-6 (r.), 411 (r.), 485. 

Bunsen, Chevalier 324 (motto) 

Burgess, Bishop 186 

Burke, Edmund 94 (r.) 

Burnet, Bishop . . .91, 101, 180, 200, 251 (r.), 335, 374 (motto), 378 

385 (r.), 469, 483. 

Burton, Edward, D.D 254,342,346 

BushneU, Horace, D.D. . 85, 184, 242, 262, 293, 301, 307, 310 (r.), 313, 314 
337, 379, 382, 412 (r.), 457 (r.), 463. 

Butler, Bishop 95 (r.) 

Butler, Charles, Esq 116, 156 

Butler, Samuel 67 (motto) 

Byrth, Thomas, D.D., F.S.A 103 

C. 

Calixt, or Calixtus, George 336 (r.), 340 (r.) 

Calmet, Augustin 360 (?\), 425 

Calvin, John . 39 (r.), 62 (r.), 131 (r.), 145 (r.), 182 (r.), 193 (r.), 213 

251 (r.), 267, 278, 300, 301, 302, 312, 314 (r.), 331 

397, 398 (r.). 
Campbell, George, D.D. . 27, 28 (r.), 57, 68, 74, 146, 154, 178, 187 (r.), 

237, 245, 248, 327, 339, 443, 470. 

Campbell, Lord 119-20 

Canus, or Cano, Melchior 366 

Capelius, or Capel, Lewis • 347 (r.) 

Carlile, James 274, 371, 381, 398, 445 

Chace, George I., LL.D 130, 171 

Chalmers, Alexander, F.S. A.., Esq • 89 



4:96 INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 

Chalmers, Thomas, D.D., LL.D. . 30, 47 (r.), 71, 81, 89, 114, 141, 147, 159 

362 (motto), 371, 373, 452, 459. 

Chilling worth, u the immortal " 88 (r.) 

Christian Observer, Writers in the 206, 211 

Christian Psalmist 438 (motto) 

Christian Review, Writers in the 98, 99, 480 

Church Review, Writers in the 130, 176 

Clarendon, Lord 88 

Clark, D. W., D.D 276, 311 

Clarke, Adam, LL.D., F.S.A. .... 174,182,421,433,439 
Clerc, John Le . . 68, 108, 120 (r.), 140, 153, 156, 267, 314, 321, 332 

347 (r.), 385 (r.). 

Cochlaeus, John 331 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor . 74, 81, 92 (r.), 108 (motto), 116, 149, 162, 187 (r.) 

191, 198 (r.), 203, 208, 224, 234, 240, 261, 270 

282 (r.), 287, 295, 296 (r.), 314, 317, 320 (r.) 

324, 343, 360, 382 (r.). 

Comings, Prebendary 28 

Congregational Magazine, Writers in the 402-5 

Conybeare, John Josias •• 237 

Conybeare, W. D., M.A., F.R.S 394 (r.) 

Coppenstein, John Andrew 374 

Cowper, William . 217, 239. (Mottoes.) 

Cox, Francis Augustus, D.D., LL.D. •••••• 63, 134 

Crabbe, George, LL.B. . 76 (motto) 

Crusius . 480 (r.) 

Cudworth, Ralph, D.D. . . 34, 231, 251, 264, 281, 312, 384, 395 (r.) 



D. 

Daneau, Lambert • 831 

Daubuz, Charles, M.A. ••• 471 

Davenant, Sir William ........ 257 (motto) 

Davidson, Samuel, D.D., LL.D. . . 179, 217, 218, 219, 333, 430, 454 

Dawson, Benjamin, LL.D 286, 398, 414, 418, 451 

De Quincey, Thomas 92, 197, 213 (motto) 

Diodati, John 193 (r.) 

Doddridge, Philip, D.D 92, 109 (r.), 313, 335, 385 

Doderlein, John Christopher, D.D 335, 347 (r.) 

Donne, John, D.D 234 

Dorner, J. A., D.D 345 

Dryden, John 377 (motto) 

Dublin Review, Writer in the 376 

Durand, William 400 

Durell, David, D.D 187 (r.) 

Dwight, Timothy, S.T.D., LL.D 313, 327, 387, 447 



INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 497 



£. 
Eccris or Eck, John 374 

Eclectic Review, Writers in the • • • . 98, 100, 185 (motto) 

Edwards, Bela Bates 31, 38, 136, 241 

Edwards, John, D.D 356 

Edwards, Jonathan 443, 480 (r.), 486 

Emmons, Nathanael, D.D. . 272, 291, 293-4 (r.), 313, 314, 400, 401, 448 

Erasmus, Desiderius 235, 333 (r.), 360 (r.), 366, 426 

Ernesti, John Augustus, D.D 219, 221 

Erskine, Thomas, Esq 323 

Ess, Leander Van 80 (r.) 

Evelyn, John, Esq., F.R.S 312,351,377 

F. 

Faber 317 (r.) 

Field, Richard, D.D 374 (motto) 

Flatt, John Frederick 353, 390, 420 

Fowler, Bishop 312, 395 

French, a Catholic Barrister 117 

G. 

Galatin, Peter ♦ . . 334 (r.; 

Gasparin, Count Agenor de . • . . 199, 205-6 (r.), 210 (r.), 215 

Gastrell, Bishop 312 

Gaussen, L. ...*•••••.. 198 (r.) 

Gell, Robert, D.D 431 

Genebrard, Gilbert 312 

Gerard, Gilbert, D.D 219, 220, 223 (r.), 225 

Gibson, Bishop ^ . 109 

Goodwin, Thomas, D.D 334, 401 

Gordonius Hunlaeius, or James Gordon 376 (r.) 

Gretser, James 370 

Griesbach, John James, D.D. . 185, 187, 215, 218, 433. (Referred to.) 
Grotius, Hugo . . .120 (r.), 314 (r.), 347 (r.), 385 («\), 425 (r.), 426 

Guenther 330 

Gurney, Joseph John ••••••••• 433 

Guthrie, Dr 98 

H. 

Hackspan, Theodore 377 

Hagenbach, Karl (Charles) Rudolph, D.D 232 

Hale, Sir Matthew . 76, 100, 119 (r.), 234 

Hales, " the ever-memorable " 88 (r.) 

42 # 



498 INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 

Mall, Bishop 39 

Hall, Robert, M.A. . 42, 50, 61, 70, 80, 94, 128, 134, 146, 156, 158, 173, 181 
237, 314, 328, 378, 387, 436, 443, 486. 

Hampden, Bishop, D.D 118, 150, 225, 329, 365, 370 

Hare, Bishop • . . . . 67, 91 

Hare, Julius Charles, M.A 135, 169, 175, 215, 355 

Haven, Joseph, jun 295, 300, 313, 373, 391, 413, 425 

Hawkins, William, M.A. . 353, 399 

Herbert, George 227 (motto) 

Hewlett, John, B.D - 417 

Hey, John, D.D 110, 217, 322, 333 (r.), 381 

Hieronymus a Hyacintho 374 

Hill, George, D.D., F.R.S.E 413, 483 

Hinds, Bishop 194, 204, 210 

Hoffman, Andrew Theophilus (Andreas Gottlieb), D.D. . . . 342 

Holden, George, M.A 266 

Hooker, Richard, M.A 172 (motto), 314 (r.), 367, 392 

Hopkins, Samuel, D.D 277, 288, 290, 313 

Home, Thomas Hartwell, B.D. 30, 175, 218, 219, 222, 223, 225, 391, 400, 415 

Horsley, Bishop 237, 313, 369, 446 (motto) 

Hosius, Cardinal • • • • • 374 

Howe, John, A.M 283, 284 (r.), 286, 309, 312, 385 (r.) 

Hughes, James 323 

Hugh de St. Cher 400 

Huntingford, Bishop 313, 396 

Hurd, Bishop 321, 439 

J. 

James, John Angell 32, 46, 47, 83 

Jeffrey, Lord ....••••.... 104 

Jenyns, Soame, Esq. 313, 321 

Johnson, H. M 380 

Johnson, Samuel, LL.D . 37, 231 

Johnstone, John, M.D., F.R.S 95 (r.), 96 (r.) 

Jones, William, of Nayland, M.A., F.R.S 288 (r.), 313 

Tones, William, M.A., a Baptist writer 115 

K. 

Kebb 48 (motto) 

King, David 47 (r%) 

King, Sir Peter 261 

Knapp, George Christian, D.D. . 232, 249, 254, 282, 313, 340, 348, 390, 420 

427, 435, 441, 451, 467, 479, 482, 484. 

Knox, John 196 (r.) 

Knox, Vicesimus, D.D 37, 42, 59, 69, 80, 93, 111, 141 



INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 499 



L. 

Latermann, John, D.D. » 336 (r.) 

Laud, Archbishop . 177 183 (r.) 

Laurence, Archbishop 341 

Leibnitz, Godfrey William de • • • 312 

Leighton, Archbishop, D.D. 53, 384 

Lightfoot, John 483 

Limborch, Philip .... 172,250,266,332,417,419,471,477,481 

Lindsly, Philip 104 

Longley, Bishop 354, 361, 413 

Lopez, Gregory 78 (r.) 

Lowth, Bishop 99 (r.), 134, 185, 427 

Lowth, William, B.D. 470 

Lucas, Francis ; or, Lucas Brugensis 334 

Lucke, Frederick, or Godfrey Charles Frederick, D.D. . . . 428 

Luther, Martin . 62 (r.), 131, 145 (r.), 182 (r.), 196 (r.), 205 (r.), 209 (r.) 
324, 331. 

M. 

McAll, Robert Stephens, LL.D 74, 164 

Macknight, James, D.D 186, 429, 433, 486 

Madame, Archibald, D.D 86, 327, 332 

Magee, Archbishop .... 95, 97, 102, 112. (Referred to.) 

Magoon, E. L. . . . 33, 38, 64, 84, 129, 137, 170, 184, 233, 437, 444 

Maltby, Bishop 245, 352, 364, 446 

Mangey, Thomas, LL.D., D.D 339, 352 

Manton, Thomas, D.D 319, 399 

Maresius, or De Marets, Samuel 411 (r.) 

Marsh, Bishop 186 

Masenius, James 366, 375 

Mason 458 (motto) 

Maurice, Frederick Denison, M.A. . 107, 205, 255, 337, 410, 411 (r.), 462 

Mayer, John, D.D 427 

Mayer, Lewis, D.D 423 

Melancthon, Philip . . . 126, 182 (r.), 280, 288 (r.), 339, 369 (r.) 

Methodist Quarterly Review, Writer in the 99 

Michaelis, John David . . 193 (r.), 200, 207, 218, 219, 251, 346, 353, 358 

428, 477. 

Miller, Samuel, D.D 313, 351 (motto) 

Milman, Henry Hart 86, 240, 246, 313, 453, 454, 460 

Milner, John, D.D., F.S.A 375 

Milner, Joseph, B.A 193 (r.) 

More, Henry, D.D., F.R.S 312, 314 (r.), 317 (motto) 

Morus, Samuel Frederick Nathaniel, D.D. . . . 225, 280, 288 (r.) 
Mosheim, John Laurence von .... 87, 101, 239, 245, 332 (r.) 
Murdock, James, D.D 260, 261, 263 



500 INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 



N. 
Neander, Augustus, or John Augustus William, D.D. . 198 (r.), 246, 318 

344, 363, 372, 432, 436, 456 

Needham 419 (motto) 

Newcome, Archbishop 97 (r.), 187 (r.), 431 

New Englander, Writers in the 105, 121, 180 

Newton, John 31 (r.) 

Newman, John Henry, M.A 369 

North British Review, Writers in the 142, 182, 198 

Nosselt, John Augustus, D.D 419, 426 

Nye, Philip 814 (r.) 

0. 

Olshausen, Hermann, D.D 401, 402 (r.) 

Orme, William 48, 63, 186 

Orthodox Presbyterian, Writer in the 480 

Orton, Job, D.D 92 

Ostervald, John Frederick ........ 239 

Owen, John, D.D 53, 377 

Oxford or Anglican Doctors 353, 371 

Oxford, Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Colleges belonging to the 

University of 286 

P. 

Paley, William, D.D 119 (r.), 202, 454 

Park, Edwards Amasa, D.D 136, 256 

Parr, Samuel, LL.D. . . 29, 36, 50, 59, 69, 79, 95, 96 (r.), 102, 113, 133 

157, 160, 167, 226, 232, 248, 333. 

Patrick, Bishop 397 (motto) 

Pearson, Bishop . 261, 265, 314 (r.), 389, 393, 407 (motto), 409, 411 (r.), 

465, 485. 

Penn, Granville, Esq 187, 215, 411, 431 

Penn, James, B.A 181 

Petavius, Dionysius ; or, Denys Petau 375 

Picus, John 342 (r.) 

Planck, Gottlieb (Theophilus) Jacob, D.D 217, 220, 223 

Pond, Enoch, D.D 299, 313, 412, 457 

Possevin, Anthony 374 

Powell, Baden, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. • . . 163, 215, 221, 238, 387 

Powell, William Samuel, D.D 154, 155, 201, 410- 

Prideaux, Humphrey, D.D 346 

Pusey, E. B., D.D 174 (r.), 210 

Kenty, or Renti, Marquis de 78 (r.) 

Bidgley, Thomas, D.D 278,314,378,385,390 



INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 001 

Robinson, John • . . . 131 

Roscelin 312 (r.) 

Rosenmuller, John George, D.D 429 

Rupertus Tuitiensis 334 (r.) 

S. 

Salabert, John 334 (r.) 

Salmeron, Alphonso ...... 334, 347 (r.), 351, 377 

Sanderson, Bishop 145, 332 

Saurin, James 67, 73, 141, 144, 149, 235, 297 

Sawyer, Leicester A 44, 52, 120, 246 

Schlegel, John Rudolph 336 

Schleierraacher, Fredk. E. Daniel, D.D. 198 (r.), 271, 305, 306 (r.), 314 (r.) 

Schleusner, John Frederick, D.D 425, 470 

Schmitz, Leonhard, Ph. D. . • 86 

Schneckenburger, Matthias, D.D. ...... 365 (r.) 

Schott, Henry Augustus, D.D. 336 

Scotch Paraphrases, Writers of . • • • 469, 485. (Mottoes.) 

Scultet, Abraham, D.D 469 

Seeker, Archbishop 326 

Seiler, George Frederick, D.D. . . 190, 203, 217, 218, 221, 222, 434 

Selden, John 71, 132, 213 (motto) 

Shakspeare, William . . .34, 56, 177, 334, 356, 425. (Mottoes.) 

Shedd, William G. T 262, 296, 372, 380 

Sherlock, Thomas, Bishop of London •••••• 466, 473 

Sherlock, William, D.D. . 4 (r.), 166, 213, 235, 270 (r.), 282, 283, 284 (r.) 

287 (r.), 308, 312, 314, 325, 362, 378, 409, 443 

Shore, Sir John 90 (r.) 

Simon, Father 345, 346 (r.) 

Simpson, David, M.A. 58, 79, 93, 207, 252 

Smalridge, Bishop 367 

Smith, John Pye, D.D. F.R.S. . . 97, 103, 187, 190, 193, 205 (r.), 208, 223 

313, 342, 343, 347, 355, 359, 396, 400 
404 (r.), 444, 456, 484. 

Smith, Sydney, M.A 37, 80, 151, 240 

South, Robert, D.D. . 4 (r.), 67, 86 (motto), 167, 173, 223, 225, 285, 304, 312 
321, 326, 332, 335, 378, 382 (r.), 384, 397, 409. 

Southey, Robert, LL.D 40 (motto) 

Spirit of the Pilgrims, Writers in the 99, 169 

Spring, Gardiner, D.D., LL.D 98, 216, 383, 436, 450 

Stanhope, George, D.D 426, 471 

Steuchus Eugubinus 334 (r.) 

Stevens, Abel 99 

Stillingfleet, Bishop 312 

Storr & Flatt 444 

Struthers, Gavin, D.D. . . 39, 47 (r.), 53, 54 (r J, 66, 71. 76. 148 



502 INDEX OF TRINITARIANS. 

Stuart, Moses, M.A. . 100, 104, 152, 183, 198, 216, 264, 268, 269, 212, 275 
276-7 (r.), 278, 279 (r.), 280 (r.), 289, 292, 298 
299 (r.), 305, 306, 309, 310 (r.), 313, 341 (r.> 
342 (r.), 345, 350, 382, 387, 391, 392 (motto), 422 
426, 427 (r.), 429, 430, 431-2 (r.), 468. 

Sweetser, Seth, D.I) 338, 350, 391, 482 

Symonds, John, LL.D 187 (r.), 237 

T. 

Tanner, Adam • 374 (r.), 376 (r.) 

Taylor, Bishop . 72, 77, 100, 138, 165, 245, 250, 315, 317, 324, 366, 374, 401, 438 

Taylor, Isaac 30, 43, 70, 134, 315 

Theophylact, Archbishop 440 

Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, Authors of . 177, 183 

Tholuck, Frederick Augustus Gottreu, D.D 198 (r.), 314 

Thomas a Kempis ......... 78 (r.) 

Tillotson, Archbishop . 72, 77, 91 (r.), 101, 127, 165, 172, 189, 235, 251 

312, 314, 317 (r.), 320, 324 (motto), 325 
333 (r.), 390, 393, 398, 409, 465. 

Todd, John, D.D 361 

Tollner, John Theophilus (Johann Gottlieb), D.D 313 

Tomline, Bishop 254, 333 (r.) 

Tostat, or Tostatus, Bishop 334, 414 

Townsend, George, A.M 363 

Tregelles, Samuel Prideaux, LL.D 218 

Trelcatius, the Younger 279 (r.) 

Trollope, William, M.A 411 (r.), 440 

Tucker, John 191 (r.) 

Turner, D 110 

Turretin 182 (r.) 

U and W. 

Ullmann, Charles, D.D 447 

Waddington, George, M.A. ........ 369 

Wake, Archbishop 26, 78, 127, 140, 145, 162 

Wallis, John, D.D 303, 309 (r.), 312 

Warburton, Bishop 59 (r.) 

Wardlaw, Ralph, D.D. 47, 54, 83, 313, 366 (motto), 373 (r.), 381, 432 (r.) 
Waterland, Daniel, D.D. 91 (r.), 270 (r.), 286 (r.), 287 (r.), 288 (r.), 290 

295 (r.), 312, 395, 477 (motto), 486. 

Watson, Bishop 69,91,97,110,173,180,253 

Watts, Isaac 188, 234, 414, 446, 464. (Mottoes.) 

Wesley, John, M.A 5, 41, 6£ (r.), 78, 91, 167, 173, 213, 251 

Westminster Divines ....... 177, 234, 273, 381 

Wetstein, John James 120 (r.), 218 (r.) 



INDEX OF UNITARIANS. 



503 



Wette, De, William Martin Leberecht, D.D 
Wettenhal, Bishop .... 
Whately, Archbishop . 4 (r.), 63, 118, 123 (r. 



163, 168, 179, 
298, 303 (r.) ; 



Whitaker, John, B.D. 
Whitby, Daniel, D.D. . 
White, Samuel, M.A. 
Whitefield, George, M.A. 
Wiekus, or Wieckus, James, D 
Wilberforce, William, Esq. 
Wilkins, Bishop 
Williams, Joseph . • 
Williams, Roger • 
Williams, William R. . 
Winslow, Governor • • 
Winterbotham, William 
Wiseman, Cardinal . 
Witsius, Herman, D.D. 
Woods, Leonard, jun., D.D. 
Wotton, William, D.D. . 
Wright, William, LL.D. . 



193 (r.), 95-6 (r.) 

102 

.), 128, 136, 141, 144, 147, 154 



194 
313, 



214 
322, 



222, 238. 
329, 461. 

411 (r, 



241, 249, 255 



. 342 (r.) 

, 431 (r.), 439 

427 

26, 78 

. 376 (r.) 

90, 103 

. 385 (r.) 

403, 405 (r.) 

. 64 (r.) 

43, 148 

131 

93 

196, 318, 333, 358, 365 

366, 377, 394 

. 348 (r.) 

352, 356, 357 (r.) 

. 190 (r.), 222 (r.) 



Young, Edward, LL.D. 
Zwingle, Ulric • • 



Y and Z. 



138 (motto), 165 (motto), 313, 321 
. 182 (r.), 196 (r.) 



IV. — UNITARIANS REFERRED TO. 



Barbauld, Mrs 96 

Belsham, Thomas 95, 97, 99, 207, 354, 360 

Benson, George, D.D 115 

Berry, Charles 95 

Buckminster, Joseph Stevens 98 

Burnap, George W., D.D . . 105 

Cappe, Newcome 95 

Carpenter, Lant, LL.D 47, 97, 98 

Chandler, Samuel, D.D 115 

Channing, William Ellery, D.D 47, 90, 98-9, 104, 105 

Clarke, Samuel, D.D 91, 120, 332 

Cogan, E 95 

Dewey, Orville. D.D 105 



504 INDEX OF UNITARIANS. 

Disney, John, D.D 93 

Dudith, Andrew 86 

Duke of Grafton 95, 110, 119 

Falkland, Lord Viscount 88 

Field, William 95, 96, 113 

Firmin, Thomas . 55, 90, 91 

Foster, James, D.D 115 

Fratres Poloni (the Polish Brethren) 95 

Hartley, David, M.D 92 

Jebb, John, M.D. 93, 95, 111 

Jones, Sir William .......... 90 

Kippis, Andrew, D.D 109 

Lardner, Nathaniel, D.D 65, 90, 91, 92, 95, 115, 119, 120 

Lindsay, James, D.D. • • • • • • • • • . 112 

Lindsey, Theophilus, M.A 92, 93, 95, 360 

Locke, John 45, 89, 91, 119, 120, 123, 356, 386 

Milton, John 55, 64, 89, 104, 120 

Newton, Sir Isaac 55, 89, 91, 104, 114, 119, 120, 159 

Norton, Andrews 47, 90, 100, 105 

Noyes, George R., D.D 99 

Pounds, John • . • • 98 

Price, Richard, D.D 93, 94, 103 

Priestley, Joseph, LL.D. . 55, 90, 93, 94, 96, 99, 104, 107, 111-12, 116, 359 

360, 369. 

Robberds, John Gooch 95 

Sears, Edmund H 105 

Servetus, Michael 39, 64, 251 

Shepherd, William, LL.D 95 

Socinus, Faustus 62, 87, 100, 108, 113 

Socinus, Laelius . . . . . 86-7 

Sparks, Jared, LL.D. ••• 105 

Story, Judge 105 

Taylor, John, D.D 95, 105 

Wakefield, Gilbert 112 

Wallace, Robert 88 

Ware, Henry, jun., D.D 47, 99, 105 

Ware, Mrs. Mary L 99, 121 

Whiston, William 91, 120 

Yates, James, M.A 95 






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